We Weren't Born to Follow
by wandertogondor
Summary: After being saved by the Winchester's, Carrie Harrington joins the hunting business in hopes of escaping the life she put behind her. A long road is paved for her by a certain blue-eyed angel who keeps her standing parallel to the famed hunters. Lots of protective Dean. OC.
1. Prelude

Dean-23

Sam-19

Carrie-14

Dean glanced at the young girl who sat in the backseat through the rear view mirror. Her long, wavy, black hair was tied into a conservative ponytail; a few locks were shining against her shoulders as the early morning sun streamed through the windows of the Impala. He had been reluctant to let her come—she was just a kid but had insisted that she tag along. She had said something about moral obligation but Dean had been too shocked by her contending to listen. Sam tried his hand at discouraging her but that hadn't worked either. She looked like a tough girl though. She would make a good hunter.

"Hey, Carina," Sam began, turning back to the girl who tilted her head to the side inquisitively with a slight look of irritation passing through her gray eyes.

"It's Carrie," She corrected plainly.

"Uh, Carrie," Sam stammered under her hard stare. "you really don't want this for yourself. You can have a totally normal life."

"Look, Mr. Winchester, I'd rather have an abnormal life than be miserable forever."

"You can just call me Sam," Sam smiled, obviously flattered at her polite demeanor. "I just think that you can save yourself from a lot of disappointment."

"I appreciate your concern, honest, I do, but I think I can think for myself." Carrie replied earnestly, looking back out of the window with a peaceful, content concentration.

"It's not going to work, Sammy," Dean, who had stayed silent throughout the whole conversation, despite his brother's desperate looks for help, put in. "If she wants to stay then she can stay, But, look kid, we're not hauling your ass back if you want out."

"Yes, we are, Dean." Sam opposed, glaring at his brother but surprised to see a smile spread across Carina's face. "Don't listen to him. If you do want out then we'll make sure you get back home alright."

"Wait," Her voice was low and a bit cautious. "you guys aren't serial killers, are you?"

"That depends on who you're talking to," Dean smirked, driving down the large highway on his way to Bobby's. Carina nodded and relaxed, biting the inside of her lip before rummaging inside of her olive green rucksack.

"Here," She held out a wad of cash into the front seat between Dean and Sam's heads. "there's about three hundred and sixty bucks in here. I guess you can use it for ammo or whatever. I'm only guessing that you need a lot of ammo to kill the things that almost ripped me into Rosemary's babies. What was that thing anyway?"

"It was a wraith." Dean eyed her again through the rear view mirror to see any sign of fear in her face. But there wasn't even an inkling of emotion to assure him of any worry in her young heart.

"Keep your money," Sam said kindly. "Dean likes to work for it."

"What do you two do for money?"

"Credit card scams and hustling pool mostly." The youngest Winchester informed, figuring that she'd have to know if she were to come along with them.

"Awesome." Carrie replied with a sardonic cadence in her voice.

And Dean grinned with approval, knowing that they had made the right choice by letting Carina Harrington have her way, but not knowing why.

He didn't know yet, that is.

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	2. Zoolander

**This chapter is just a little into to Dean and Carrie's partnering relationship. Hope you like it! Reviews are appreciated but if that isn't your brand of vodka then that's okay :) **

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Carrie had been holed up at Singer's Salvage Yard for over three days. The old drunk, who had a lasting smell of whiskey and gunpowder, was accommodating enough. Bobby had bombarded her with questions before she could even step through the doorway after the Winchester's went charging off to meet John.

"Can you drink?" was Bobby Singer's first inquiry, followed by: "Can you drive?" Both of which Carina answered no. "Can you shoot?"

"Yes," She spoke with a burst of confident energy.

"Welcome home, kid." Bobby clapped her back, taking a drink from his canteen as he ushered her into his humble abode.

Dean pulled up alone in the Impala three days later, a grim scowl set on his youthful face. Carrie smiled hopefully, making her way out of the ramshackle garage while sheepishly rubbing oil off her fingers.

"Where's Sam?" Bobby asked before she could—her smile was long gone when she spotted the worry and anger in Dean's body language.

"It's not his fight," The older Winchester snapped, turning to Carrie. "I guess it's just you and me now, Harrington."

*two years later*

Dean-25

Carrie-16

"How's it going down there?" Carrie inquired, shining the flashlight down to where Dean leaned against a shovel. His breath was labored as he looked up at her. The sixteen year old sat down, throwing her legs over the edge of the grave and resting her elbow against her knee so the light would be steady for him.

"You could help dig once in a while," Dean shoved the metal plate into the moist dirt, groaning as he hauled the soil into a growing pile, near his head.

"I could," She agreed reasonably. "but then, what would you do?"

"You're a little snot rag, you know that?" Carrie chuckled, sliding into the pit and snatching the shovel from Dean's hand, giving him the torch instead.

"Get outta here, old man," She joked, nudging his arm. Dean stared down at her grinning face before rubbing his dirt stained fingers against her cheek, and quickly jumping out of the grave. Carrie energetically prodded the earth with the spade, hitting the wooden coffin as beads of sweat started to form on her brow. Going to one side of the hole, Carrie leaned over and, with all her might, pulled open the casket. An abhorrent stench blew up from the half rotted skeleton. Stuck behind the lid, and much too short to jump out of the six foot trench, Carrie reached up for Dean's strong hand, allowing him to haul her up.

He tossed her the metal can filled to the brim with salt crystals. She had just finished salting the bones when Dean doused the grave with gasoline and thrown in a match. Taking a few steps back, they watched the bright flames spread dense smoke into the dark sky.

"Don't you think it's beautiful?" Carrie looked up, a peaceful smile on her face.

"What? A burger? Yeah, it sounds pretty beautiful right now."

"No," She hit his arm for misunderstanding. "I mean the smoke. Isn't it pretty when it rises up into the vaults of heaven?"

"'Vaults of heaven'?" Dean scrunched his face in an unbelieving manner. "You're like a mini Shakespeare. 'Vaults of heaven'. What a dork."

"Shut up," Carrie yawned, still holding the shovel while she covered her mouth with her fist.

After the fire had died down and the corpse lay in a pile of ash at the bottom of the grave, Dean and Carrie quickly hauled the dirt back, racing against the rising sun. With one final pat, the two of them stretched their aching backs and slowly walked toward the Impala.

"I love easy salt and burns," Carrie sighed, sliding onto the cool leather seats, glancing at Dean rub his red eyes before starting the engine.

"You should try getting some sleep," He just said. "I'll wake you up when we get to the motel."

"Naw," She whispered, trying to suppress the heavy urge to close her eyes. "You sleep. I sleep." The way she figured it, why should she sleep while Dean was equally, if not more, tired?

The Impala grumbled to a stop in front of the cheap motel off the main road in the dark of midnight. Dean cast a forlorn glance at the local bar across the street, looking back to see Carrie shrugging in approval.

"Lock the door and don't break the salt lines," He reminded.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," She half-heartedly waved him off, shuffling to the motel while Dean crossed the street.

It was three in the morning when Dean slipped back into the motel room. The lamp was on beside Carrie's bed and she lay asleep on her back with a book resting on her arm. Her black hair was spread out on the pillow like a halo. Dean sniffed, a minute smile forming on his lips as he reached over to set her book on the bedside table. Suddenly, Carrie's leg hooked over his arm and she head butted him, kicking him against the chest with her free leg. Dean hit the floor with a painful thump. When he looked up, Carrie had a handful of his shirt in her grip and a bowie knife pressed against his windpipe.

"Dean?" Her sleepy eyes furrowed with a distasteful frown as she stood.

"Morning, sleeping beauty."

"Why can't I ever wake up to see a hot guy?" Dean got to his feet just to sit at the edge of his bed to unlace his boots.

"I'm as hot as it's gonna get, sweetheart." Carrie pursed her lips, scrunching her nose at the same time. Dean glanced at her, not hesitating to add, "You look like a whore. Stop it."

"I'm bringing Blue Steel back." She mumbled sarcastically, sheathing her knife and returning it underneath her pillow.

"That wasn't Blue Steel." Dean laughed at her. "That was like duck-face on acid."

"You're really mean."

"I'm surprised you're not used to it yet." He smirked as Carrie fell back in her own bed, twisting her mouth to the side. He knew that face. That was the face she wore when she was severely hungry, sleepy and pissed off. Dean knew better than to mess with Carina Harrington when she had her mouth twisted to the side.

"No, I don't want you to go out and get me something to eat. Just shut up and go to sleep, Dean."

"I didn't say anything." He exclaimed as she wordlessly pulled the sheets over her legs and put in her earphones before tucking her arms under her head. "Night, Zoolander." Dean looked over his shoulders to see that she was lost in her own world. The deep line between her eyes had relaxed and she even had a small smile somewhere on her face. He stretched back and lay flat across the clean sheets, reaching up to switch off the lamp between the two beds.

"Goodnight, Winchester." Carrie mumbled, letting the darkness settle in the stuffy motel room. Dean chuckled to himself before falling into a deep, effortless sleep.

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	3. It's Carrie

**I suppose it's only right to say that I don't own Dean Winchester...unfortunately. But I do own Carrie :) Thanks for all your kind reviews! **

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"'And the worms ate into his brain.'" Carrie sang when Dean opened his eyes that morning, groaning when he felt his sore muscles. "'Hey you, out there on the road always doing what you're told, can you help me? Hey you, out there beyond the wall'—oh, top of the morning to ya." She grinned, as he sat up in bed.

"I can't even handle your singing in the car, Harrington; let alone at ten in the morning" She just laughed, watching him with a childish twinkle in her eyes.

"I got you breakfast."

"Thanks," Dean ruffled the top of her head approvingly, sitting at the other end of the table which was set against the wall. "You are so whipped." She kicked in him in the shin.

"No, I'm not."

"Dude, you are _so _whipped." Dean smiled happily as he took his first bite into the breakfast sandwich.

"Did you call Sam?" Carrie asked casually, her chin resting on the butt of her hand as she watched him eating with overemphasized interest.

"You really think he'd pick up? It's been two years, Carrie." She shrugged inoffensively, dismissing the way he snapped. "Anyway, I've found a gig up in the north."

"Well, that's just great, hoss. Please excuse me while I put my Clint Eastwood face on." Dean dropped his food onto the paper that it had been wrapped in, pointing an accusing finger at the young girl sitting across from him.

"Man's got to know his limitations. You don't just take the name of Eastwood in vain."

"Dude, did you seriously just quote _Magnum Force_?"

"No." He lied, throwing in, "You're going to school." Carrie stood quickly, nearly knocking her chair over. "Sit down, kid. You're going to pee yourself."

"Dean," Carrie stubbornly slammed her fist against the table. "I don't want to go to school."

"Not with an attitude like that, you're not."

"I'm serious."

"Carrie, you're what, fourteen?"

"Sixteen," She corrected, with a roll of her eyes.

"Fine," Dean said with much strained patience. "you're sixteen. I don't care if you stomp and nag and bang your pretty head on the floor till blood comes out of your ears. You're going."

"Are you challenging me?" Carrie countered, sticking a finger in his face. "You can't win this, Dean."

*three days later*

Barrington High School, Barrington, Illinois

"Don't say it," Carrie put her hand up to block the sight of Dean's wide grin as they walked up the stone steps to the small high school. "I will shoot you."

"Man's got to know his limitations, ducky." He jogged to the main entrance, slipping into the building first and slamming the door into Carrie's face with a playful smirk. Flashing a death glare, Carrie swung the door open with a ferocious pull and stormed inside.

While Dean was being a wise-ass with the principle, Carina Harrington stared out into the hallways from the office window. She hadn't been in a high school in two years. She never liked the whole insecure environment. Mentally bracing herself, Carrie analyzed the walking students that passed by. There were the preps, jocks, Goths, band geeks, nerds, sluts, druggies, and, of course, the punk rockers, who looked more like Syd Barrett in 1975 then strummers.

"Welcome to Barrington High School, Miss Winchester." The principle smiled, holding out his hand which Carrie politely took, glancing at Dean for messing up her name. "I'll have a senior show you to your classes." He walked out of his office and called for the senior sitting at the receptionist's desk.

"You had _one_ job, Dean," Carrie hissed, elbowing the tall hunter. "One job."

"Hey, I'm Tommy," A blond haired guy greeted Carrie with a toothy smile.

"Go get him, tiger," Dean mumbled under his breath, nudging her out of the door. "Have fun."

"Was that your brother?" Tommy asked, leading Carrie through the simple hallway system, showing her where her classes were.

"Yeah," She answered, trying to remember the steps she took from one room to the other.

"You two don't look like each other."

"Oh, he's adopted."

Tommy laughed, standing in front of her first period door. "If you need me for anything, I won't be too hard to find. There's only, like, two hundred and fifty kids at this school anyway."

"Thanks," Carrie quickly returned his grin, stepping into the nearly empty classroom. A young woman, as well as ten other students, glanced back at her.

"Hey, new kid," The teacher smiled cockily. "pick a seat."

"Did you really just call her 'new kid'?" A girl piped up from the group as Carrie sat at the very back, neatly placing her rucksack at her feet. Tommy still stood outside of the door, he waved to Carrie when she looked over at him before disappearing down the hall.

"Alright," The teacher said, curtly placing a book in front of the 'new kid', and walked back to the board. "let's learn some proofs, chickadees." It was going to be a very long day, Carrie thought.

She stared at the clock during sixth period, just waiting for the bell to ring. The day had just gotten crappier and crappier. Carrie played with her pen, already antsy in the stuffy classroom. There was the loud tolling of the dismissal bell and she was the first one up and out.

Dean had the Impala parked in front of the school. He leaned against the car, watching the main entrance for his partner in crime...his little, bitchy sidekick. He stood in his cheap suit, having just come from the coroner's office. Pulling at his itchy collar, Dean finally caught glimpse of Carrie as she crossed the neatly mowed grass.

"How was your first day, Cassie?" He asked, quickly catching the light rucksack when she threw it at him, growling while saying,

"It's Carrie. Stop quoting Stephen King books. It doesn't suit you." Dean furrowed his eyebrows, watching her wrap an arm around her own waist and grimace.

"You feeling okay, slick?"

"I'm fine," Carrie snapped, grabbing her backpack from his hands and sliding into the Impala.

"I've been waiting to eat. I saw a burger joint near the gas station. You in?" He peered in through her open door.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really," Dean grinned when he saw that sliver of a smile reflect off her face as he slammed her door closed.

Carrie squirmed restlessly in the hard red seat at the nearly empty Five Guys twenty minutes later. Her face was set in a restless scrunch. Dean had noticed her sudden whimpers while clutching her torso but it never registered to him that she was in any kind of pain.

As for Carrie, the cramp that knotted in her midriff had her burying her face in her arms, resenting with every inch of herself for having being born a girl. It ripped through her body like she was about to have some unholy offspring of Lucifer bursting through her uterus. Dean's quiet burp brought her back to the real world. He set his half-eaten burger down to sip on a large coke. Carrie reached over her untouched food, snatching the cup from Dean and taking long swallows at the soft drink. Though the sharp fizz burned the back of her mouth and throat, she felt somewhat relieved.

"So, what'd you find out about the case?"

"Well," Dean began, an inkling of hesitancy going through his mind. "the body was ripped up pretty badly. The police think it was an animal attack. But between the three victims, I've got nothing."

"We'll find something. Where's the report from the coroner?"

"In the car," Dean took another passionate bite out of the greasy burger.

"Can I have the keys?" She stood, pulling her coat on and holding a hand out. A bit grudgingly, Dean dropped the coveted keys to the Impala into Carrie's hand, a subtle sign of his trust.

Carrie huddled against the wind, unlocking the driver's door and sliding into the seat before searching for the thick files which had been put between the upholstery. She sat in the Impala, straining to find a comfortable position to concentrate on the vast information on her lap. Dean tapped on the window ten minutes later, carrying her uneaten burger in a doggie bag.

"I know what's wrong with you," He declared proudly, showing Carrie the phone number that the dirty blond cashier had written out on the back of their receipt.

"Do tell,"

"You're just grumpy that you have to go to school."

"That would be it," Carrie agreed, going back to studying the files. "and it's that wonderful time of the month again." Dean froze, glancing fearfully from the road to Carina, who was concernedly calm.

"So, you're going to be moody for a whole week?"

"Don't be silly, Dean." Carrie sighed out exaggeratedly, rolling her eyes like he was being achingly illogical. "Being moody is just a lie girls make up so we can tell men how much we really hate you and blame it on the flow."

"Dude, don't say 'flow'. It's nasty."

"Lucky for you, Winchester," She carried on monotonously. "I don't need an excuse to tell you I hate you."

"You love me, Harrington, and you know it." Dean chuckled.

"Just keep telling yourself that, princess."

"Hey, at least I'm not the one who looks like Cinderella before the bibbity bobbity boo."

"As if the ape-suit wasn't enough," Carrie smirked.

"I will leave you on the side of the road, Harrington. I don't care how tough you think you are, hot shot."

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	4. Hit the Road Jack

**I only own Carrie Harrington. Thanks for all your kind reviews! Also, a big, big hug to sweetkiwi604 for being such a strong bastion for me! I owe you a lot! **

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They had been holed down in Barrington for nearly a week now. The case was at a dead end. No leads, no nothing. Dean could tell that Carrie was starting to get antsy, and it wasn't just because she was on her blood fest. He knew that she didn't like to stay in the same place for more than three or four days and it really didn't help that she had to wake up at five-thirty in the morning to go to school.

"Why do you like moving around so much?" Dean once asked, wanting to know why she liked this life so much when she could have been normal.

"One man's hell is another man's heaven, Dean." Carrie had simply replied.

Now, as Dean stood against the Impala outside of the old school building, he watched Carrie slowly make her way towards him.

"Hey, Carrie," Tommy chased after her with a charming grin, making Dean want to puke. "I was just wondering if maybe you'd like to go to prom with me." Carrie cocked her head to the side, trying to rack her mind for any remembrance of him.

"I'm sorry," She began politely, yet still befuddled. "I don't think I remember your name." Dean, who listened to the whole conversation, groaned inwardly at her lack of ease. He lowered his head, letting out a half-sympathetic sigh.

"I'm Tommy,"

"Oh, I knew your face." Then, while biting her lower lip with an air of sophisticated flirtation, Carrie continued. "I guess knowing your name is just as important." Dean's head snapped up when he heard a little giggle escape her mouth. "I would love to go with you, Tommy, but my brother over there isn't very good at sharing."

"I—I understand," Tommy stammered under the hard glare Dean sent him and started back for the parking lot. Carrie's face dropped when she turned to walk back to the Impala.

"Hey," Dean cupped his hand under her chin. "don't tell me that you're into Blondie over there. We could stick around for a few more days when this job's over."

"Naw," She opened the car door gloomily and sat inside with a thump. Dean's heart sank when he saw Carrie brush a tear from her cheek. She was feeling it now.

That night Carrie sat on the floor outside of the bathroom, enjoying a few hours of Winchester-less moment's in the motel. Starting absently down at the pages she had filled with notes, her trained ears picked out the scratching sound of a paper clip jiggling through the lock on the front door. Setting her notebook down, she scuttled on her hands and knees to stand up by her neatly made bed just as the door creaked open.

"Where's Dean?" A tall dark figure stood on the welcome mat. Carrie made quick mental connections in her head before replying in little more than a whisper.

"You've been parked outside for the past hour and a half. You tell me." John Winchester smirked, looking around the room that she had painstakingly kept spotlessly clean despite Dean's noncooperation.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Funny, I thought you Winchester's were all: shoot first, ask questions later." Despite her struggling, Carrie managed to find her confidence under John's piercing stare. He blinked, having studied her enough for the time being, and brushed back the heavy curtains which were draped over the window.

"Tell Dean that I finished the job here and that I've got a lead on the demon." John shifted his eyes back to the rugged girl with a knowing smile. "Put the safety back on, honey. You'll shoot your eye out." Carrie hesitantly pulled the 9 millimeter Beretta from behind her pillow, weighing it irritatingly in her hand as she snapped the safety in place. "I could teach you a thing or two about Berettas if you stick around long enough."

"Thanks, but no thanks. Dean's Miller Lite runs don't last very long,"

John shrugged at her abrupt cue to hit the road, opening the door and taking one step outside. "Remember to tell Dean what I said, blackbird."

Carrie waited to make sure that the door was totally closed before she sprinted to bolt the lock.

Dean seldom brought up his family in conversations unless the information was directly needed—which was seldom. Nonetheless, Carrie had found a way to know the Winchester's back story. Bobby had been more or less obliging on the matter. She had had the opportunity to ask other hunters such as Caleb or Pastor Jim. Their stories were always the same: Mary Winchester was killed in a fire that devoured the Winchester's Kansas home by a yellow-eyed demon. Carrie couldn't remotely speculate that Dean or Sam, let alone John, would hail from little ol' Lawrence.

For some reason she knew that this demon had to do with Mary. Maybe it was just that guilty glimmer in John Winchester's eyes when he said it. Or maybe it was the way he looked at her with self-loathing in his every move.

Scratching a brief note to Dean on the back of nearby motel stationary, Carrie grabbed her jacket and slipped out towards the café she had seen a mile down Main Street.

Each one of her steps was heavy and scratched against the gravel pavement with arduous strength. She finally stood in front of a coral pink building, the word _Waffee _shining in bright neon. Retro styled tables lined the walls and a panel of computers sat at the far right. Not even bothering to look at the cashier who kept an eye on her from behind the counter, Carrie perched herself onto one of the high stools in front of a computer, furiously typing into the search engine.

After an hour, she sighed loudly, sliding halfway off the chair in exhaustion—feeling a step behind the whole world. The worker had been beginning to close up the shop, warning her twenty minutes ago but her mind was in another dimension filled with creatures that boggled her very mind.

"Hey," The cashier, a man in his mid-twenties with bright red hair, said gruffly, glancing around the empty shop. "It's closing time."

"I heard you the first time, handsome," Carrie continued scrolling down the page, looking for any kind of information that would help her in the few seconds she had before she would be kicked out.

"Look," The man leaned against the counter beside her computer, sighing exasperatedly. "I want to get home. You mind wrapping up your little study session? And shouldn't you be getting home for your curfew? Why are you so interested in house fires in the 80s?"

She turned her head to look at him, frowning rudely. "It's really none of your business. Back off, man."

"You little bitch," He took a handful of her hair, jerking her back and throwing her onto the counter. The stool loudly clattered against the ground.

"Get off of me." Carrie kicked and struggled, trying to reach her jackknife under his heavy weight as he harshly pulled at her clothes. "Dean!"

As if on cue, the bow-legged hunter burst through the glass door. He nearly threw the cashier against the opposite wall and pulled Carrie off of the counter and behind him.

"Go to the Impala," Dean ordered, his eyebrows furrowed deeply in anger as he pushed the young girl out the door then hauled the fallen man to his feet. "You got off with your balls still on asshole. If I see you ever again, you won't be as lucky. Trust me."

Carrie was wiping the blood that dripped out of her nose with the sleeve of her jacket when Dean slid behind the wheel, casting a sidelong glance at her.

"You okay?"

"Just peachy. What have you got on the case?"

"I think another hunter beat us to the punch. We've been on this case for a week now and we've got buttkus."

"I think you're right." Carrie said under her breath, suddenly afraid to tell Dean about his father's visit. "We should probably get out of here before people start asking questions. They might think that we were behind the killings and maybe they'll think-"

"Carrie," Dean grinned fondly. "shut up."

"I'm just trying to be logical."

"Well, don't. It scares me."

"Well, what's your bright idea Einstein?" Carrie watched as Dean started the engine to the Impala, slowly backing out of the _Waffee _parking lot. With a mischievous smile, Dean asked,

"How good are you at bar tending?"

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	5. Ramble On

**I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I'm been momentarily out of action. I'd appreciate if you left reviews :)**

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"Hey, bar wench, are you almost done?" Dean moaned in boredom, hunching over the glass of whiskey that Carrie had sent his way. She rolled her eyes while drying out a beer mug with a clean rag.

"Dean," She almost scolded. "I work at a bar. You shouldn't be complaining."

"I want to go to sleep."

"I have an hour left till closing time. Go sleep in the car or just go to the motel. I'll walk back."

"No," Dean scoffed as if what she had suggested was radical and illogical.

"Why not, Dean?" Carrie's learning hands worked precisely as she quickly mixed a drink for the grumpy old-timer at the other end of the bar. He reminded her of Bobby so she was more than happy to deal with his attitude.

"I'm not going to let some asshole perv on you. Hit me." Dean sucked in the excess saliva in his mouth once he had finished his drink. Carrie leaned against the counter, her eyebrows raised cynically.

"Let's go, tough guy. Up and at 'em." She walked out of the bar, throwing one of Dean's heavy arms over her shoulder and heaved him up to his feet. His feet occasionally dragged on the floor but with a lot of cursing she finally had him sprawled out in the back seat of the Impala.

"Stay." Carrie closed the door to the Impala then opened it again. "Here." She added; making sure the keys were in his pocket before hurrying back inside out of the darkness of the night.

***Few Days Earlier* **

_Gonna ramble on, sing my song. Gotta keep-a-searchin' for my baby...Gonna work my way, round the world. I can't stop this feelin' in my heart gotta keep searchin' for my baby. I can't find my bluebird! _

Carrie jumped in surprise, nearly slamming her skull against the window of the Impala. Reaching over, she turned the volume dial counterclockwise.

"I can't take you seriously in that hat," Dean didn't try holding back the wide grin that stretched across his face before he tugged on the ear to the lion trapper hat Carrie had picked up at a convenience store. She batted his hand away, sitting up straighter and squinting as she brushed away the crust at the corners of her eyes.

"Where are we?"

"Oklahoma." He playfully jabbed her shoulder with his fist, trying to concentrate between her and the empty road before them.

"So help me, Dean, if you start singing..." Carrie warned, kicking off her shoes and tucking her legs under her body.

"Relax, sweetheart. I don't know about you, but I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

Dean considered this for a moment, nodding and shrugging when he found it to be the truth. He briefly glanced at Carrie, realizing that she was the only thing that he could hold on to on the road. He knew that there would always be a job to follow. There's always a job to do but somehow he found that a soldier does a better job with a girl by his side.

"We'll stop near Blackburn."

"Why Blackburn?"

"Just 'cause,"

"'Just 'cause'?" Carrie questioned, her eyebrows arched unbelievingly. "What, no coordinates from your old man?"

"Believe it or not, Harrington, I can catch my own ride if I have to."

"Ew," She sneered.

"You know what I mean."

"You're just crabby because someone else beat us back in Barrington."

"What do you know about that case?" He snapped. "Did you hear from another hunter or something?"

"No," Carrie quickly insisted, not folding under Dean's hard stare.

"Can I ask you a question?"  
"You just did."

"I'm serious, Carrie." Dean grunted in irritation, nervously shifting in the seat.

"What do you want to ask me?"

"What happened to your family?"

"Dean—"

"It's about time you spilled the beans, kid. Now spill."

"I don't know what you want me to tell you, Winchester."

"What happened to your family maybe," He suggested sarcastically. Carrie let out a sharp breath, looking out of the windshield and into the horizon.

"My dad was an Army Ranger. He died in Mogadishu when I was five. A year before I met you, my older sister OD'd on heroine. My mom couldn't take it. So, after she...left…I lived with a friend."

"You have friends?"

"Shut up. You asked."

Dean glanced at her staring out of the window, he knew she was lying. She was a master at telling people what they wanted to hear. It was a matter of self-preservation with Carrie. He knew that she didn't disregard his judgment or question his trust. He knew that he was all she had.

"Don't get your panties in a twist, short bus."

"Who're you calling a short bus, short bus?" Carrie jokingly mumbled, nudging the hunter's leg with her foot. Dean grinned, his tense shoulders relaxing as she settled against the door and closed her eyes once again.

They reached Blackburn, Oklahoma early in the afternoon. It didn't take Dean long to find a sports bar.

"Ugh, I feel like your baggage." Carrie groaned, spying the way the waitress' face dropped when they saw her behind the handsome Winchester.

"You are baggage, Harrington." Dean sat at a table for two, throwing his arm over the back of the chair. "I'm stuck with you."

"Don't worry, when I get my own set of wheels and you're going through your midlife crisis you'll come crawling back to me. And _you'll _be stuck sitting in shot gun."

"Stop talking. I think I'm getting a tumor."

"Hey, can you buy me a drink?" She perked up, bobbing up and down excitedly across from him.

"Dude, I'm not going to buy you a drink. You're like fourteen."

"I'm sixteen, Dean. And you said you were my age when your dad bought you your first drink. If you're not going to buy me one then I'll ask someone else and who knows if they'll slip a little something-something in there."

"Are you—Are you blackmailing me?"

"Is it working?" She grinned, her words drenched in molasses. Dean covered his eyes with one hand, shaking his head.

"Son of a bitch," He scoffed, under his breath. "Fine, what do you want?"

"Gin and tonic on the rocks," She answered surely.

Dean's head snapped up.

"I see alcoholism in your near future, Harrington. We'll start with a beer."

After some light flirting with the bartender, Dean came back to the table and watched with amusement as Carrie sized up the pint of beer that he had placed before her. She fidgeted; tapping on the table then on the glass nervously before finally asking,

"Won't you get in trouble for giving alcohol to a minor?"

"You know me, Harrington. I'm living on the edge."

"Did you get anything out of that bartender?"

"Nothing but a phone number but you're stalling." Dean grinned, his eyes glued to the young girl's face as she reluctantly brought the brim of the heavy mug to her lips and painfully swallowed.

"That's disgusting. Why would you drink that? It tastes like crap." After the fit of coughing and gagging, Carrie pushed the mug over to Dean who readily drank the crisp, smooth liquid.

"Suck it up, Harrington," Dean set the empty mug down, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hands before leaning in and motioning for Carrie to do the same. "I think we've got a job here."

"Why are you whispering?" She asked, trying her best to be quiet but surprised when Dean frowned at her loudly whispered question.

"I got coordinates from my dad telling us to come here—"

"I knew it!" Carrie cried with a victorious pump of her fist.

"That's not the point, Harrington." Dean continued, trying to settle her snarky demeanor. "We have to figure out the lay of the land. And I need you to help me."

"But I always help you, Dean." She furrowed her eyebrows childishly and said in a hushed, almost desperate, voice.

"This sport's bar is a little low on bar wenches so you're going to be a bartender."

"You want me to _what_?!"

"Shut up. Stop talking so loud. I'm serious."

"I'm under aged, though."

"When has that ever stopped you?" Dean indicated to the empty mug with froth standing at the bottom.

"You want me to be a bartender? You really think that I could listen to other people's problems?"

"You watch _way _too many movies."

"Look who's talking."

"I need you to do this, Carrie. Imagine all the crap you can hear just from standing behind a bar. And you've got the ears on the entire juicy gossip chick's love. Maybe we'll catch something."

"First of all, you can do this too. Second of all, I don't think I can pass for an eighteen year old." Dean shrugged. "Fine, if you really want me to do this then you better ask nicely."

"Carrie." He began, rolling his eyes as the words came out. "Would you _please_ help me out and pass as a bartender?" Carrie thought about this for a moment, tapping her chin with her pointer finger and looking around for inspiration.

"What's in it for me?"

"You get to keep the money."

"Honey, I would have kept it with or without your approval."

"Is that a yes, Harrington?"

She grinned.

***Present***

"He should have paid you." A deep voice chuckled as Carrie stopped to clear away the empty bottles and mugs on the tables.

"Are you kidding?" She laughed; a bit too preoccupied to look up at the speaker's face immediately. "That cheapskate would have paid a stripper better than this tip."

"Brother?"

"Friend," Carrie complied, her back still facing the stranger though she had managed to catch a hazy sidelong glimpse of him. "You don't believe me?" She asked when he let out an airy laugh.

She nearly lost her breath for a brief second when she laid eyes on a dapper, well-built figure with rusty brown hair.

"I think you're very good at lying."

"Very observant," She praised mockingly. "Can I get you a drink, wise ass?"

"Do you talk to all of your customers like that, darling?" His grin reached his eyes as he drummed on the counter with his fingers.

"Only if they look like lousy tippers,"

"I'm Brad."

"Well, _Brad_," Carrie leaned over the counter far enough so that her face flushed at the attention he gave to looking down her low shirt. "You're sitting at a bar without drink. I'd like to help you change that."

"You can get me Bacardi." He mused. "Maybe you could even get rid of that jarhead you call a friend."

Carrie frowned.

"You have no right to talk about him like that." She growled. "And if you really need a lift, why don't you stick a jack up your ass."

Brad just chuckled, sticking a cigarette in his mouth and cupping his hand over the lighter as a wisp of cancerous smoke wafted into the clean air. Without a word, he stepped out of the small building and disappeared out of the sight of the windows.

"You sure know how to piss off the high rollers, don't you, blackbird?" John Winchester beamed proudly as he slid into the free stool across from where Carrie was standing. "Surprised to see me?"

"So surprised," Carrie sarcastically frowned as if she was greatly impressed, giving the hunter a thumbs up and waving to the grumpy man as he stalked out to his rusted up truck.

"I'm guessing you didn't keep your end of the promise."

"Well, Dean didn't ask." She shrugged, eyeing the nearly empty bar, save the three wasted men at the dart boards. "I thought you had a lead on yellow eyes."

"Yellow eyes can wait," John snapped.

Carrie's eyes slit suspiciously as she nonchalantly scratched her side, reaching for the Beretta that she had tucked in her jeans at the small of her back. John rolled his eyes, loudly drumming the counter with his fingers.

"Who're you?" She breathed, trying to stand firm.

"Why," His eyes flickered as a devilish grin spread on his wide mouth. "I'm Johnny Winchester."

"Yup," Carrie's mind fluttered at extraordinary speeds to try and get the attention of the drunken men who were missing the board and putting tiny holes in the walls. "and I'm the queen of England."

"Don't make any sudden movements." He smirked. "I won't hesitate to kill you."

"Well, why haven't you?"

"Because I want to hear you squeal." The creature in a version of John's body growled, leaning in an inch which seemed like a foot to Carrie. "I want to hear you beg for Dean Winchester."

John's face slowly dissolved into the frame of Brad's body. Swallowing the hard lump that was caught in her throat, Carrie prayed to God that Dean would wake up from his liquor lunch and help her.

"Goodnight, Carrie!" The three men finally dropped the darts and were stumbling out of the dusky room. "If you're ever lonely, just call us."

With wide eyes, Carrie watched them start their hillbilly four-wheel drives and go charging out of the parking lot, leaving her staring into the eyes of her death.

"Guess it's just you and me, Carrie." Brad evilly grinned. "You can get me that Bacardi now and we'll see if you can't give me a good lift."

Despite the sickening drop that made her stomach rumble, Carina Harrington watched the rusty haired man upend the glass she had filled with the clear liquid and grab her wrist.

"Move it, princess. You're mine."

Dean groaned as he raised his sore neck from the uncomfortable support of the arm rest. It took him a few minutes to look around and finally process that he was lying in the cold comfort of the Impala. Rubbing his aching shoulder, he sat up and glanced out of the window at the dark sports bar. There was no sign of movement in the single light inside of the building which sent a sickening wave of worry crash over Dean.

"Carrie?" He tapped on the door then peeked in through the windows. "Carrie?"

No answer.

With shaking hands, Dean picked at the lock to the front door. After he had quietly opened the door, he was careful to avoid the running security cameras and slipped into the kitchen then checked in the bathrooms.

"Dammit, Carrie," He groaned exasperatedly, and then stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her coat was still hanging in one corner with a slip of paper sticking out of the pocket.

_Well, Steve-o, it seems like they've captured me. –Dan-o _

Dean laughed lightly, despite the desperate tears that welled up in his eyes; he pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number.

"Hello, Dean?"

The young hunter sighed in relief, his fingernails digging into his scalp.

"Dad, I need your help."

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	6. Kandukonden Kandukonden

**Ooo, first chapter of the new year! I know Carrie might not be the most interesting cat but I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading and reviewing :) Have a nice day!**

* * *

"Are you scared, Carrie?" Brad asked, stopping at a traffic light on his way out of the little town of Blackburn. "You should be."

Carrie didn't answer; her eyes were nonchalantly scanning the cars that drove through the t-intersection. Her stomach knotted up as she prayed silently that the Impala would roar by. Just thinking of that hunk of rust calmed her down to her inner most being.

"So, how does it feel being kidnapped by a shape shifter?" He droned on. "You're all alone with your guard dog."

"Do you really want to spend the rest of your life knowing Dean Winchester is hunting your ass?" Carrie slowly turned to look him in the eye, the car jolted forward slightly as Brad sped through the lights and into the darkness. "I wouldn't."

"I'm quivering with fear," He snickered overconfidently, shaking the fingers on his free hand.

"You should be." She ground her teeth together. "He will find you and he will kill you."

"How sweet," He broke in, flooring the gas pedal. "you put your blind hope in that Winchester."

"He's my friend."

Carrie knew she was treading on thin ice. If Dean had taught her anything, it was that the moment you start getting personal with someone was the moment they can break you. If Brad bent her anymore she would break. And that scared the hell out of Carrie. Yeah, she'd been tossed around by spirit and ghosts but never by something so tangible.

"You don't know what you need,"

"Yeah, well," Her voice was dry and it was hard for her to get the words out properly. "I know what I want."

"And what do you want, Miss Makarov?"

"How do you know my name?" Carrie's eyes widened. She leaned against the door, slowly edging toward the handle.

"The same way I know that your entire family is alive." Brad smirked. "You really shouldn't let on, Carina. You don't lie that well. You're an open book to say the least."

Carrie was quivering slightly, panic rising in her throat. She couldn't seem to muster enough courage to actually throw herself out of a car that was going 160 miles per hour—past street signs and empty fields.

She tried her best containing that swelling feeling of worry. All her faith and hope was in Dean. Every hint of trust that she had ever possessed was in his hands. Now, he was just playing on her heartstrings.

Carrie felt doubt.

And that wasn't a good sign.

*****Kandukonden Kandukonden*****

Any creature should have shuddered the morning that Dean Winchester cocked his sawed off, griping Carrie's jacket in his hand. A childish anger boiled within him as if someone had taken what was rightfully his without asking. And if Dean believed in anything, it was that nobody takes what was his. They could do whatever the hell they wanted with him but once that stupid son of a gun had crossed the fine line separating Dean from what he cared about, they were as good as dead.

The young hunter had stayed up all night combing through every security camera in a fifty mile radius from the sport's bar while nursing a throbbing hangover. He had tracked the GPS on her phone and faked his identity to no avail. He had read and reread the shallow note referencing _Hawaii Five-O _countless amount of times. Then again, it was the only proof that gave him any inkling of hope that he would find Carrie. Dean could have been sure that she had disappeared entirely. But he knew her better than that and the flashing red dot on his computer screen proved it.

"Let me get this straight." John leaned against his truck. "You lied to a sixteen year old girl to make her work in a bar so you could get free drinks?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Dean shrugged.

"I bet she'll give you hell for that,"

"Oh, I don't doubt it. She did leave this note."

John snatched the scrap of paper from his son's hands, reading Carrie's neat handwriting. He chuckled, throwing it against Dean's chest.

"Flip it over."

"'Brad Schalter'? What the hell is a Schalter?"

"It's a name," John slapped him upside the head, turning to rummage through the back of his truck. "Schalter also means shifter in German. My best guess is that our Blackbird knew what she was up against."

"How do you know what Carrie looks like?" Dean furrowed his eyebrows, leaning over the side of the truck to get a clear look at his father's face. John Winchester just sighed.

"She didn't tell you what I said, did she?"

"Tell me, what? When did you ever talk to her?"

"I talked to her in Barrington. I finished the job back there. Look, Dean, our insurance doesn't cover PMS, so if you really need this girl…"

"She needs me, dad. Her whole family is dead."

"Is that what she told you?" John smirked. "Tricky chick. Put your shotgun away, son. The only way to snuff a shape shifter is a silver bullet or a blade to the heart. If you're not into that, then decapitation is always an option."

"I like that idea." Dean agreed, loading silver bullets into his magazine. "But, dad,"

"Yeah?"

"That shifter's mine."

"Is she worth it, Dean? I haven't seen you in two years and this is why?"

"I would do the same for you and Sam. Carrie's no different."

"Okay," John nodded, running his hand over his unshaven chin. "but how will you know she has your back when you need it?"

"Like you said, dad," Dean returned his dad's smooth talk, opening the driver's door to the Impala. "I haven't seen you in two years. And I'm still alive."

"I trust you, Dean. I know you can take care of yourself. Just don't carry someone who can't carry you."

*****Kandukonden Kandukonden*****

"Get out." Brad ordered once the sleek Lexus had come to a stop in front of a worn warehouse.

_How cliché_, Carrie thought as she slowly stepped out to her feet. She wavered, placing a hand on the car roof to steady her body.

"That's called carsickness. You're going to feel that in the morning." He bellowed, supporting her elbow.

"Stop touching me," Carrie pulled out of his grip, growling as she was led into the musty building.

"Now," Brad began, gathering a rope and setting a chair in the center of the room. "sit. Don't make me ask you twice. I just want to talk."

"No."

"No?" His eyebrows arched, daring her to repeat what she had just said so that he could be clear.  
"You should be really happy that I didn't throw you in the trunk."

Her feet felt like lead but Carrie burst out of the door at full speed, sprinting toward the car and fumbling with the door. There was a loud beeping as the car locked. Unable to find any other way out then the empty land around her, Carrie braced herself. The shifter started making his way toward her, his legs taking long strides as he wrapped his arms around Carrie's waist and harshly dragged her into the building again.

His eyes shone a yellowish-white.

"When I say sit," He growled, tightening the ropes around her wrists and ankles till red welts would burn at the prickly touch. "You better sit, you little whore."

"Did you really think you got me back there?" She grinned smugly, imitating her weak voice in a needy pitch. "'I _can't_ survive with Dean. I _need_ him. I can't _stand_ by myself.' I'm not that easy to break, you son of a bitch."

His fist slammed across her jaw. Carrie yelped, surprised at the sudden impact. She felt her entire face heat up with a twinge of pain and wiggled her nose to get rid of that sensation of blood running down to the top of her lip.

"Now," He straightened out, rubbing his knuckles and cracking his neck. "we are just going to wait here until your prince in shining armor rides up. In the meantime," He walked up to an old stereo system and turned it on.

_Good friends we have or good friends we've lost along the way. In this great future, you can't forget your past. So dry your tears, I say.__ No woman, no cry. No woman, no cry. Here little darling, don't shed no tears. No woman, no—_

"You into Bob Marley, Makarov? Yeah, me neither." He turned the tuning dial a little to the right.

_Ah, but they never told you the price that you pay for things that you might have done. Only the good die young—_

"Wouldn't want that to happen, now would we? Let's try again."

_I don't know why I love her like I do. All the changes you put me through. Take my money, my cigarettes. I haven't seen the worst of it yet._

"This is more like it," The shifter grinned, standing in front of the young girl and getting his fist ready for another blow. "Come on, Carina. Why so glum? You're having fun, right? I thought fun was what you wanted to have when you were working as an under-aged bar wench."

Carrie loosened her tightly clenched jaw, unable to cower under his hail of raining punches. Her father had taught her that when someone slapped your face you should turn the other cheek. He had told her not to fight back then they would stop. Screw that! Carrie's skin cried out in pain as she tried to wiggle her hands out of the heavy coils of rope.

_I don't know why you treat me so bad. Think of all the things that we could have had. Love is an ocean, I can't forget. My sweet sixteen I would never regret._

"Hey," She coughed, her face eventually pressed against the dirty cement, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "you punch like a little girl."

His hand wrapped around her neck lifting her up off the ground, with his thumb pressed against the hollow of her throat. Carrie senses started getting hazy as the shifter's grip got harder and harder on her windpipe. With a half-conscious grin, she started laughing, much to his confusion. The shifter threw her onto the chair, glaring down at her blood stained face.

"They're here." She chortled, dry-gagging on her own blood.

Brad wheeled around, squinting at every dark shadow. His breathing was heavy and beads of cold sweat ran down against his brow.

"You're lying!" He smashed his bruised knuckles against her face, pounding her into the ground just to haul her up to continue the cycle. "It's show time."

_Hold me, squeeze me, love me, tease me! 'Till I can, 'till I can, I can't tell…_

The music faded slowly. Shivers ran up the shape shifter's spine. He held Carrie's limp body up with one hand, his fist near the side of his face—ready for another burst of energy. Brad slowly turned to see John positioned against the stereo, a glare on his sharp face.

"Let's talk,"

The shifter smiled; eyes flickering yellow as its grip on Carrie's shirtfront loosened and she sunk into the ground. John slowly walked toward the creature, allowing it to circle away from Carrie to give him wide berth.

"You know you're screw, right?" John was smiling, standing protectively over the young girl's still body.

"What are you going to do, Winchester? She's half-dead anyway!"

"Oh, I'm not going to do anything. But uh, Dean might."

"Where is your big, tough boy, huh?" The shifter slowly dissolved into Dean's body, stretching out in its new suit just as a silver knife broke through his spine and out of his abdomen.

"You should have thought twice before you touched my girl," Dean growled near the creature's ear. "I'll make sure you feel the burn." With a wide slice, the shifter's head was severed from his neck.

As soon as the body fell at his feet, Dean ran to where his father was leaning over Carrie. His finger was feeling her wrist, trying to find a pulse.

"She needs to get to a hospital, Dean."

Without question, the young Winchester took her in his arms and carried her to the Impala, not minding the blots of blood staining his dark shirt.

*****Kandukonden Kandukonden*****

Carrie felt clean…sore, but clean. Her mouth subconsciously twisted to the side and she irritably shifted under the hot blankets that were draped over her legs.

"Am I dead?" Cautiously, she opened her eyes, squinting against the bright sunlight that streamed in through the hospital room window. "Dude, really? A sick bay? What, do I look twelve to you?"

Dean chuckled, hunched over in the cheap chair by her bed. He was still wearing the clothes she had last seen him in.

"What time is it?" She put her clammy hand on her forehead.

"Time for you to get a watch,"

"I see your wise-ass attitude hasn't dampened."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I think you're confusing me with someone who cares, Cassie."

"It's Carrie," She blandly said, turning her head to hack into her elbow. Carrie cleared her stuffy throat loudly, kicking the sheets off of her bare legs which were poking out under the hospital gown. "How's the daytime tv?"

"That fabric softener teddy bear, oh, I'm gonna hunt that little bitch down." Dean sat contentedly when he saw a shadow of a smile cross across her mouth.

"I get first dibs. Hey, can you buy me a kazoo?"

"What the hell do you want a kazoo for?" Dean scrunched his nose.

She shrugged, her face growing dismal again. "How'd you find me?"

"What are you talking about? You wrote the dude's name on the back of your note. I tracked down his license plate."

"Dean, I didn't write his name on the back."

"D—don't mess with me, Harrington." He warned, turning his head at an angle. "There was a name on the back of that paper."

"Well, I'm not lying, if that's what you're saying." Her voice rose and a storm began in her eyes.

"I know what I saw." He responded, resolute, dragging his hand through his musty hair.

"Maybe your dad wrote it. He seemed to get here quick, fast, and in a hurry."

"Yeah, that's the other answer I want to know. So help me, Carrie, did it ever occur to you that you should have told me that _my dad _clued you into the last job?"

Her eyes lowered, seemingly interested in the black blotches on her wrists.

"Answer me!"

Carrie jumped, her words dragging out moodily. "No! Where's your dad anyway?" She never liked apologizing so as long as she could avoid it, she did.

"That's not the point," Dean stood, pacing around the bed, his tone softened. "He left this morning once he knew you were stabilized; said he had a lead on the demon. You're killing me, Harrington, you really are."

"Excuse me," She retorted. "don't think I'm going to stick around long enough to apologize to you, Dean. You only care about your family. I get it. So do I. And I care about you. Once I get my own car then I'm out. No more hospital bills, no more horrible singing, no more me. Just wait for that day. I'm serious."

"You don't mean that,"

"No, Dean, I don't think _you _mean it. I didn't write shit on the back of that paper. But your dad did. The shifter told me that it was some sort of test that your dad set up for you. I was the bait and you were walking right into the devil's lair. I'm sorry."

"No, you don't have to be sorry," Dean leaned over her bedside again, taking her hand in his.

"I'm not sorry about what I did or lack thereof," She pulled away, breezily indicating to his chest. "I'm sorry for getting blood on your shirt. Where are you going?"

"I just need to talk to the doctor. Try not to use your telekinesis to blow this joint, Cassie."

"It's Carrie, and I'm not making any promises."

Once Dean disappeared into the hallway, Carrie climbed out of the white bed sheets. She opened the bureau opposite the foot of the bed and pulled on her clothing. Jumping on one foot in a rush to get on her jeans, she noticed a note in her back pocket.

_Good job, Blackbird. Way to take one for the team. –JW_

She snorted dismissively, shoving the paper back into her back pocket and pulling on the rest of her clothes, shoving the hospital gown into the trash. Throwing her canvas messenger bag across her chest, Carrie met Dean at the door.

"Seriously?" He quickly followed behind her brisk pace as she hurried for the elevators at the other end of the floor.

"I didn't use telekinesis," She countered behind her shoulder, dodging the sight of all nurses and doctors. "I have a few joints in my body to crack."

"Whoa, you have a few drinks in your body and crack?"

"What? No," She ducked into a room, pulling Dean by the collar to avoid the male nurse walking down the hall in scrubs. "Why do you always assume that I'm on drugs?"

"Because you're a teenager. Don't think I don't know what you shenaniganizers do."

"You're so full of it," Carrie glanced down the hallway attempting to make a run for it when Dean tugged her back.

"Check this out," He pointed to a cork board cover with pictures of the crucifixion. "What do you make of this, Velma?"

"Shut up. Let's just get out of here. This place is giving me pins and needles—literally." She dragged the hunter through the hospital like he was a kid and finally got to the Impala. "Let's go, let's go, let's go." Carrie snapped her fingers impatiently, one hand ready to pull the door open. Dean took his own time just to annoy her, rummaging in his pockets.

"Patience, young Padawan." He murmured, slowly sliding the keys into the lock and sitting in the front seat.

"I'm going to whoop your six-one ass." Carrie rounded the car and climbed over him to get to her seat since he didn't unlock her side.

"You good, ducky?" Dean made sure before he started the engine. She rolled her eyes, tossing her bag over her feet. "I'll take that as a yes."

Carrie turned on the radio, tediously searching through every station till the song she wanted played as they burst through the highway.

_Ooh, I've been runnin' down this dusty road. The wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'. I don't know where I'll be tomorrow. Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'. I've been trying to make it home. Got to make it, before too long…_

"You have a good taste in music, Harrington." Dean announced over the music, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me,"

"If you had a nickel, then you'd have five cents."

"Sometimes I wonder why you didn't get into Stanford, Dean."

"Don't flatter."

"I didn't intend to." Carrie smiled innocuously.

"Don't be a smart ass.

"Look who's talking."

"Sorry, I can't hear you over how awesome I am." He turned up the music till the whole car vibrated.

Dean glanced at Carrie. She was staring out of the window, a peaceful expression blanketing the harbored secrets inside of her. Her face was pale and dark shadows rimmed her eyes. Dean knew she wouldn't sleep even if he told her that it'd be good for her. He hid the newspaper that he had snaked from a hospital room between the seats, hoping that she hadn't seen what was printed on the missing person's page.

"Hey, can we stop at the next Wal-Mart or something?" Carrie asked out of the blue, turning the volume down.

"Why, do you need bitch detector? I have one, look," Dean wiggled his free hand in the air, making rapid beeping sounds when his fingers were pointed at her.

"This is why you have to try so hard to get laid," Carrie slapped his hand down. "I need tampons."

"You just had your legal amount of bitchiness."

"It's a life or death situation,"

"You're not going to die, Harrington."

"I wasn't talking about me."

Dean glanced at her, his eyebrow arched as he thought about it—trying to understand her context.

"You're so weird."

"Hey, I'm not cuckoo for cocoa puffs, Dean. I don't even like chocolate-flavored cereal."

Dean chuckled, twirling his pointer finger around his ear to indicate that she was nuts and turned the volume up again.

_Oh the wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'. Ooh, I don't know where I'll be tomorrow…_

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	7. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Dean leaned against the Impala, casually waiting for Carrie to come out of the mega Wal-Mart. She had nearly ripped his head off when he suggested that he could go inside with her. She said that it would 'only take five minutes.' It had been five minutes ten minutes ago. He fished out his phone and quickly punched in his father's number.

"This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If it's an emergency call my son Dean. 785-555-0179. He can help..."

Dean didn't take a moment to snap his phone shut, and watched the entrance to the store until Carrie's head popped up out of the crowd. Without a word, she walked straight past him and sat in the front seat, shoving the purchased items into her bag.

"Well, aren't you the chatty one," Dean observed with a wry grin as he pulled the car out onto the street. He cursed under his breath when he had to speed up to catch their exit since some idiot decided to tailgate them.

Carrie didn't appear to even have registered what he had said.

"Harrington, I feel like I'm talking to a corpse."

"Where are we heading to?" She asked suddenly.

Dean chuckled. "We'll drive till we get somewhere useful or the sun runs out."

"Oh, joy," She rolled her eyes.

"Hey, it gives us more bonding time, ducky."

"You mean hours of listening to the same two albums over and over again?"

"You make it sound like a bad thing."

"After two years, it grates."

"Oh, a few 9 mil bullets are missing. Do you know anything about it?"

Carrie shook her head, pushing her gun farther into her bag. She'd kept her gun a secret from him a long time. She would have to be extra careful. One slip up and the cat would be out of the bag.

"Maybe you should get some shut eye." Dean suggested, sensing her irritability.

"You sleep, I sleep. Remember?"

"Yeah, Carrie, but I'm not the one who had needles sticking out of my arms."

She twisted her mouth to the side, pouting because he was right.

"We're not going to the East Coast, right?"

"Why would it matter?" He glanced at her nervously fiddling with the zipper on her coat. "Carrie, talk to me."

"It doesn't matter."

"We'll go where the road takes us, okay? If you're worried after the shifter thing then—"

"That's not it," Carrie snapped, shifting in her seat and turning her face out toward the window.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm fine."

"Yeah, like I haven't heard that one a couple of million times."

"Really, Dean." She said quieter. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm tired."

"How about this, ducky: we drive a hundred miles and then crash for the night. I'll go get you some food. Put some meat on those bones," He poked her side.

Carrie smiled and nodded. As long as they were far, far away from the East Coast then she'd be fine. But once she started to smell the Chesapeake and the reek of crab shanties then she'd be gone. The only thing the Bay held for her was drowned memories that she didn't want coming to the surface.

*****Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*****

A hundred miles later, Dean parked the Impala in front one of the nicer looking motels. Carrie had dozed off seventy-five miles behind and he didn't have the heart to wake her up now. For once in her life she looked peaceful and unaffected by the world that was leaving her behind.

"Why'd you let me sleep?" Carrie rubbed her eyes when he came back with the room keys.

"I wanted some peace and quiet for once." He teased, grabbing the duffels from the backseat.

"You can have it when I'm dead." She muttered, possessively holding her rucksack to her chest as she followed Dean to the last room on the block.

"This is actually nice." Dean said after he had taken a look around the room. "No funky smells or any mysterious gelatinous masses in the corners. Watch it, shorty,"

Carrie rushed past him toward the bathroom still gripping her bag.

"Hey, I'm going out to get food. Do you want anything?"

"No," She slammed the bathroom door.

"Well, I'll get you some green apples. I know how much you like the sour ones."

"Fine," was her bemused response.

Dean just rolled his eyes. It must have been all the drugs they gave her at the hospital, he figured. He made sure that there was a thick line of salt under the doors and window sills before heading to the store.

Carrie quickly locked the door before carefully laying the cheap items out on the counter. As she mixed the dye in the plastic container that it came with, she took one last look at her reflection and let out a deep breath.

Dean didn't think anything of finding Carrie's face hidden behind a book when he came back to the motel. After two years, he was used to it. She carefully peeked over the top of the pages and finally laid the book on her lap.

"What the hell did you do to your hair?" Dean blanched.

"I dyed it. Duh," Carrie reached out for the bag of apples.

"You look like a blonde floosy."

"Nice to see you approve," She took a loud bite out of the first apple her hand found.

"You should wash it first. It's not healthy for you if you eat it like that,"

Carrie rolled her eyes, purposely taking another bite. "Look who's talking about being healthy. I'm blonde now, remember? I can take a few chances."

"Hey, would you consider Pennsylvania part of the East Coast?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I think there's a zombie in Erie, Pennsylvania."

"Well, that sounds eerie." She sat down in a chair near the window, lazily throwing her leg over the tabletop and munching on the curt fruit.

"Ha. Ha." He mocked, sitting at the edge of the bed and opening the newspaper he had gotten back in Blackburn.

_Name: Carina W. Makarov_

_D.O.B.: February 11, 1988 _

_Hometown: Annapolis, Maryland_

_Missing Since: April 2002_

_Age Missing: 14_

_Age at Present: 16_

_Height: 5'3_

_Eye Color: Grey_

_Hair Color: Black_

As he read through each of the physical descriptions and glanced up at Carrie, Dean's stomach sank. He could either do what was right or turn a blind eye. He slowly closed the newspaper, folding it down to its last period and tossed it in the trashcan.

"So?" He finally asked.

"So, what?"

"Are you coming to Pennsylvania with me or not?"

"I can take a bus to Bobby's. Zombies aren't my cup of tea."

Dean stood, dragging his hand across his jaw.

"What's going on, Harrington?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know who says stuff like that? Liars,"

"You're not the only one who watches CSI: Miami, Dean."

"Then for the love of god, tell me what's going on. What's up with you and the East Coast? Are you allergic to crabs or something?"

"Dean…"

"Is it because you lied and said that your family was dead?"

"How did you know that?" Carrie froze.

"Why'd you lie?"

"How did you know?"

"I'm asking the questions here, young lady. This explains why you look like Gwen Stefani and why you're always sneaking around."

She stood and walked to her bag, taking out her Beretta and laying it over the dirty material.

"When I met you it was, what, three in the morning? What do you think I was doing out so early, Dean?"

She said slowly, choosing her words with care. "I was going to commit suicide."

His jaw dropped and Carrie quickly rambled on, trying to justify herself.

"You don't know how hard it was, Dean. I didn't think there was any other way out!"

"Give me your gun," He growled. "Give me your gun and all your knives. You're going to Bobby's."

"No, I want to help you. I can help."

Dean grabbed her gun, quickly clearing the magazine and fieldstripping it down to five separate parts.

"You should have thought about that before,"

"I didn't belong there," She admitted loudly, taking out her collection of knives: from ballistics to Bowies and switchblades to letter openers.

"Where is 'there'?"

"Maryland. I grew up on the Chesapeake. I'd walk out the door in the mornings and you know what I'd smell? Crabs...and the Bay. I'd lay awake all night listening to the gulls screaming and the waves crashing foam on the white sand. It was peaceful there. And I couldn't stand it."

"Carrie, right now what you say means a lot. And I won't be an enabler and let you run away from your problems. You have to come face to face with your demons eventually."

"That's beautiful, Dean. It really is." She frowned rigidly. "Come here so I can gently lay my head on your shoulder. But I know one thing's for sure and that's that I'm not going back."

"Carrie—"

"If you want me to go back to Maryland why don't you go back to Kansas?"

"I can't." Dean said quietly, looking her square in the eyes.

"Neither can I. There are too many bad memories where you want me to go, Winchester. But, if going to Erie means that we forget this conversation then fine. I want to play bait then."

"You're not playing bait." He declared, calming down when he realized that she had gotten a weight off her chest.

"It's either yes or yes, Dean. I'm in if you want or I can try making a life on my own."

*****Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*****

"So, what's the nightmare this time?" Carrie asked the next morning as they drove to Pennsylvania.

"Remember that thing in the newspaper?"

"'Stripper suffocates dude with thighs'?"

Dean grinned. "No, the other thing,"

"Right. The guy walks into the E.R. and kneels over dead without a liver. About that, I actually found something pretty interesting."

"What?"

"The dead body was covered in bloody fingerprints which weren't the victim's."

"Okay, great. My man Dave Caruso will be stoked to hear it."

Carrie rolled her eyes. "I did some more research before we left—"

"Nerd,"

"And those fingerprints match a guy who died in 1981. So, you were right. Zombies,"

"Zombies do like the other other white meat. Huh. Speaking of, what do you got against zombies?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, the whole 'Zombies aren't my cup of tea'."

"Hey, man, you're the one who's been all gung ho to hunt. I just thought I'd be doing you a favor if I came along. Besides, you'd crash and burn without me."

"Says the girl who was bitch slapped by a shifter and had to go to the hospital."

"You're going to hold that one over my head for a long time, aren't you?"

"I always knew you were a smart girl, Cassie."

"It's Carrie." She snarled.

"You okay?" He asked when they passed the Philadelphia state line.

"Stop asking me that," She shouted angrily. "I'm fine, let's just get the hell out of here as soon as possible. Why couldn't your dad take this?"

"He won't answer his phone."

"I'll try."

"He won't answer. He's too busy tracking that demon." He assured.

"Well," She stuck her hand in his jacket pocket and fished out the disposable cell phone. "We all know how much you like to say I told you so."

Carrie grumbled as the line went straight to the voicemail.

"I told you so," Dean smirked.

"Shut up,"

"Quid pro quo,"

Carrie shook her head, stubbornly refusing to participate but he insisted.

"Quid pro quo, Starling,"

"What for?"

"You shoot your mouth off about my dad's test with the shifter and you can ask me whatever you want."

"Fine," She said resolutely. "You go first."

"Why'd he do it, and how?"

"He wanted to see how far you'd go to save me and he just picked up a shifter and threw it a deal. My turn. What do you remember about your mom?"

"I remember that she was beautiful. She had blond hair and blue eyes. She used to tuck me in at night, and instead of a lullaby she'd sing 'Hey Jude' because that was her favorite Beatles song. When I was sick she would feed me tomato and rice soup. Why'd you go along with it?"

"Give me a break, Winchester."

"No. Quid pro quo, Harrington, if that's even your real name. What is your real name?"

She hesitated before mumbling, "Makarov,"

"Your name is Carina Makarov? You sound like a Russian pastry. Your parents must have been smoking something when they named you."

"Last time I checked, a dean was a tight-ass cat that had your name on his special list. Not perverted at all. And I'll have you know that my parent's friend, Steph, suggested my name."

"Steph, huh?" Dean had a wide grin on his face. "Is she hot?"

"She's married."

"Things change in fourteen years, ducky."

"I'm sixteen, Dean. Why is that so hard for you to remember?"

"You should get it tattooed on your forehead or something."

"Can I get a tattoo?"

"Over my dead body," He snapped.

"That can be arranged."

*****Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*****

"Yeah, the rest of the body was intact. The liver was the only organ missing." The coroner said, taking unsure glances as Carrie looked around the dull room.

"Now," Dean began "where the liver was ripped out, did you happen to notice any...ah...teeth marks?"

The coroner looked at him like he was crazy. "Can I see your badges? Fine. So you're a cop and a moron."

"Oh, no," Carrie butt in unhelpfully, motioning to Dean. "He's very smart."

"Little miss, aren't you a bit too young to be interning with cops?"

"I'm sixteen." She threw her hands up. "Why is this such a hard concept to understand?"

"The liver was not ripped out." The gray haired man began for the holding where the body was kept. "It was removed. Surgically. By someone who knew their way around a scalpel. Didn't you read my report?"

"Of course he did." Carrie said again, ignoring Dean's looks, and bracing herself when she glanced down at the pale skin of the victim. "Oh, he said it was riveting. It was a real page-turner, just delightful."

"You done?" The coroner asked monotonously to the young girl.

"I think so," Dean quickly said, nudging her side.

"Please, go away."

"Okay, gramps." Carrie smirked and waltzed out of the heavy double doors and into the hallway.

"What? I always get nervous when you smile like that, Harrington."

"Nothing. So, that kind of punches a hole in our zombie theory, huh, that scalpel thing?"

"Yeah, zombie with skills, 'Dr. Quinn, medicine zombie'."

"Maybe we're on the wrong track, Dean, looking for hacked-up corpses."

"What should we be looking for?"

"Survivors. This isn't zombie lunch. This is organ theft." She came closer to him as they passed the various nurses and doctors toward the kidney victim's room.

*****Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*****

"I told the cops all of this yesterday. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Carrie sympathized with the guy but he was a bit too whiney. "It's just a couple of questions, sir."

"Look blondie. I just got my kidney stolen. I'm tired. And aren't you a bit too young for this line of work?"

"We'll be out of here quick." Dean assured before Carrie would lash out. "Don't you want to get the guy?"

"Will it get me back my kidney?"

"So what's the last thing you remember?" Carrie asked with the little patience she had remaining.

"Feeding my meter. I got jumped from behind...and then I wake up strapped to a table. And then the worst pain you could possibly imagine, only worse. And then I black out again. Thank God. And then I wake up screaming in some no-tell motel in a bathtub full of ice."

"Do you remember anything about the surgery – you know, what the guy looked like, any details about the room?" Dean watched over her shoulder as she scribbled random notes in a pad.

"Let me think about that." The patient contemplated sarcastically. "Yeah...one thing is coming back to me. You know what I remember? Getting my kidney cut out of my body!"

"Look, buddy," Carrie rolled her eyes.

"We should be going," Dean dragged her out of the room and out of the hall. "What's up with you? You're on edge. I haven't seen you eat. You're sarcastic all the time. Never mind, you're always sarcastic."

"Yeah," She agreed derisively. "What _were_ you thinking?"

"I'm hungry," He declared rather absently.

"It better be for burgers 'cause I already made an order for one to be waiting for you at the motel when we get back."

"You're the best, Cassie."

"It's Carrie, and don't thank me. I used your credit card."

*****Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*****

"So, I got a theory," Carrie said over the laptop, glancing up at Dean who was contentedly eating the burger. "I talked to Mr. Giggle's doctor. Turns out his incisions were sewn up with silk."

"That's weird." He commented halfheartedly.

"Yeah, nowadays it is, but silk used to be the suture of choice back in the early 19th century. It was really problematic. Patients would get massive infections. The death rate was insane."

"Good times."

"Right, so doctors, they had to do whatever they could to keep infections from spreading. One way was maggots."

"Dude, I'm eating." Dean complained but she continued, turning the screen toward him so he could scroll through the graphic drawings.

"It actually kind of worked because maggots, they eat bad tissue and they leave good tissue. And get this. When they found our guy, his body cavity was stuffed full of maggots."

"Dude, I'm eating! Alright, let me get this straight. So, people are getting ganked, right?"

Carrie nodded.

"A little 'antiques roadshow' surgery, some organ theft. But why is this all sounding familiar?"

"Because you heard it before. When you were a kid... from your Dad. Doc Benton: real-life doctor, lived in New Hampshire, brilliant and obsessed with alchemy, especially how to live forever. So, in 1816, Doc abandons his practice and…"

"Right, yeah, nobody hears from him for like twenty years, and all of sudden, people start showing up dead."

"Dead or – or missing an organ or the hand or some other kind of part."

"'Cause whatever he was doing was actually working. He just kept on ticking. Parts would wear out, he'd replace them. But I thought my Dad hunted him down and took his heart out."

"Yeah, I guess the Doc must have plugged in a new one."  
"All right, where's he doing the deed?"

"According to this," Carrie swiveled the laptop back toward her and looked for the exact lines. "Benton's picky about where he sets up his lab. He likes dense forest with access to a river or stream or some kind of freshwater."  
"Why?" Dean asked, taking another huge bite out of his burger.

"Because that's where he likes to dump the bile and intestines and fecal matter." She noticed that Dean looked more than a little bit disgusted as he lowered his food down and gagged slightly. "Lost your appetite yet?"

Dean considered this, looking at the burger and then at Carrie, then back at the burger. She rolled her eyes, noting for the hundredth time that day how much of an idiot he was.

He just looked back at his burger for good measure and said in a quiet undertone, "Oh baby, I can't stay mad at you."

"Very charming, hoss." Carrie scoffed, switching the television on and sitting crisscross on the floor in front of it.

"…A local jogger disappeared just a few hours ago. Her family called the authorities regarding the disappearance. No leads have been confirmed by Erie officials…"

"Sounds like our guy," She craned her head back at Dean who had finished scarfing down his food. He was just about to reply when his phone rang.

"Bobby."

Carrie jumped to her feet, holding her hand out for the phone so she could speak with the old hunter.

"'How's Carrie doing?'" Dean exclaimed. "The crazy little psycho dyed her hair blonde. No, it's more of a Farrah Fawcett blonde as opposed to Marilyn Monroe but it's not like Brigitte Bardot. Either way she still looks like an airhead."

"Are you serious?" She cried, grabbing the phone from him. "Yes, Bobby, I dyed my hair. What of it?"

"How're you doing, bunny?"

Carrie smiled, her attitude improving drastically. "I'm fine, Mr. Singer. And how are you?"

"I can't complain. Now, I've got a job for you."

"Bobby, we're already on a job."

Dean snatched the phone from her again, just in time for Carrie to turn the speakers on. "What's the job, Bobby?"

"I need you to check in on a friend for me."

"What's his name?"

"Rufus Turner,"

"Who's that? Like a Cleveland steamer?"

"What's a Cleveland steamer?" Carrie asked but Dean ignored her.

"He's a hunter, or he used to be."

"And now?"

"Hermit mostly. Does a little selling on the side. I haven't laid eyes on him in fifteen years. He's not the Christmas card type. But, uh, I want you to go check on him. He's in Canaan, Vermont. I've got a feeling that he knows about the demon that killed your momma."

"Thanks, Bobby. I'm on my way."

"One other thing. Take a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue."

"Okay," Dean confirmed before snapping the phone shut. "You heard the man, get your butt in gear."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a second."

"Come on. Get your stuff. The clock's ticking,"

"Look," She began to reason. "I think we should stay here and finish the case."

"You insane?" Then he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What am I thinking? Of course you are."

"Dean, this case is something that can change everything,"

"What? Chasing some Frankenstein?"

"Chasing immortality. Look, Benton can't die. I just want answers."

"No. What you're trying to do is chase Slicey McHackey here. And to kill him? No. You want to buy him a freaking beer. You want to study him."

"What's wrong with wanting to live forever, Dean?"

"Living forever is welching, Carrie. You want to stay away from your parents? Fine, I'm down with that. You want to start thinking that by living forever you can make anything better then you're wrong. Let's go."

"I'm staying here," She said quietly.

"No, you're not. 'Cause I'm not gonna let you wander out in the woods alone to track some organ stealing freak."

"You're not gonna let me?"

"No, I'm not gonna let you."

"How are you gonna stop me? Look, man, we're trying to do the same thing here."

"I know." Dean agreed. "But I'm going. So, if you wanna stay...stay."

She didn't respond, her eyes were glued to the wall.

"Be careful, Carrie."

"You too."

*****Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*****

Once Dean had gone, Carrie wasted no time putting together a map that coordinated where the abandoned cabins were in Erie. She folded the map and stuck it in her jacket pocket before stalking out to the parking lot. Carefully looking around, she broke into a 90s Honda and hotwired it. Thanks to Dean's teaching, she managed to drive all the way to the dense part of the local forest without being stopped by cops.

She had always liked the woods. There was something terrifying yet peaceful about it. After living in the hick part of Maryland for most of her life, the trees were all she knew.

The sky grew dark as she stopped at the last cabin. Pulling out a flashlight, she slowly entered. There was a dusty, cracked leather couch in the center of the room and various old books on the coffee tables. On one table near the front door she found a leather bound journal, quickly tucking that into her jacket she stalked toward the cellar. Slowly going down the creaky steps with the beam of light from her torch leading the way, a man's dead body was lying on the operating table.

She kept looking around, and, hearing a slight noise, looked through white ragged curtains and saw another body. Moving closer, Carrie glanced at the figure of a woman strapped down on another operating table. The victim's arms were stretched out beside her and covered in maggots. Carrie cautiously placed her fingers on the woman's neck, trying to find a pulse. She jumped when the woman gasped, eyes springing open.

"Shh! Shh! Shh! It's okay. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm gonna help you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Carrie mumbled helplessly, trying to find cloth to bandage the skinless part on the woman's arm.

The door upstairs opened and Carrie quickly hauled the woman out of a window before climbing out herself.

It was a long haul trying to carry the victim to the car, Carrie was nearly out of breath when she eased the woman into the backseat and climbed up front. Suddenly the glass window was smashed in and a leather gloved hand slammed Carrie's head against the steering wheel. The woman screamed as if the louder she was the more it would help. Carrie tried getting the wires to light but just as a spark came a cloth covered in chloroform was over her mouth.

*****Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*****

When Carrie regained consciousness she struggled to find that her eyes were taped open and that she was strapped to an operating table.

"You can relax. It's all gonna be okay. Ain't nothing gonna happen here that you got to worry about, Carina. Your chances of coming out of this procedure alive? Very, very high." Doc Benton rasped, the scars and stiches on his face opening and closing every time he spoke. "

"How do you know my name?"

"Oh...I know. You think I'm some kind of monster, don't you? Well, I got to tell you, I have never done one thing that I did not have to do. This whole eternal-life thing is very high-maintenance. If something goes bad, like my eyes here...you got to replace them. And sometimes things get damaged, like when that Winchester cut out my heart. Now, that...That was very inconvenient. Well, I guess it's about time that we get this thing started."

"Wait, please," Carrie squirmed as he began to scoop around her eye. "Quid pro quo!" The Doctor stopped and focused on her with a hard stare.

"What does that mean?"

"It's Latin." She sputtered. "It basically means: this for that. I'll tell you something if you do the same and return the favor."

"What do you want to know?"

"Was it worth it, living forever?"

"You wanna try it out too?" He started laughing when three shots rang out. "Shoot all you want."

Carrie let out a sigh of relief when she saw Dean. Benton began walking toward him and Dean put two more rounds into the Doc's body before being thrown to the wall. Unable to see anymore, Carrie heard a knife being plunged into someone.

"Dean! You okay?"

"A knife?" Doc Benton chuckled. "What part of immortality do you not understand? Pity about the heart, though. It was a brand-new one."

"Good. It should be pumping nice and strong..." Dean smirked, holding up a bottle of chloroform. "Sending this stuff throughout your whole body. See, I picked up your little bottle upstairs and dipped the knife in it."

There was a moan from Benton before a loud crash as he collapsed. After a moment of silence Dean stood above her, an amused shake of his head as he loosened the straps holding her wrists down.

"Where's the other girl? The jogger chick?"  
"She's dead, Carrie." He said. "I found her body near another vic."

Carrie sighed sadly, shrugging off the loss and helped Dean haul Doc Benton's body onto the operation table. When he finally woke up, it was to Dean's grinning face.

"Oh, hiya, Doc. Wakey, wakey, eggs and bac-y."

"Please." He mumbled.

"Please what? You've been killing poor bastards for over 150 years and now you got a request? Shut up."

"No, you don't understand. I can help you. I know what you need." Doc Benton glanced over at Carrie.

"We might have to cut him up into little bits. You know, this immortality thing is a bitch."

"I can read the formula for you, Carina. You know, immortality. Forever young, never die."

"And look like a fourteen year old forever?" Carrie chuckled. "No way."

"On the bright side," Dean shrugged. "you could look like him in a couple of decades."

"Very tempting," She said, placing a chloroform-drenched rag over Benton's mouth. "Now, I'm gonna take care of him. You can either help me or not. It's up to you."

*****Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*****

Once Benton's body was cut up, shoved in a box then put in an old refrigerator and buried along with his books and notes, Carrie and Dean slowly made their way to where the Impala was parked beside the Honda.

"You're back early," She remarked as she loaded the shovels in the trunk.

"I want that demon like hell but, uh, it's not going to bring my mom back. I'm not giving up. I just needed to make sure you didn't do anything stupid. You know you could have taken Benton on that immortality gig."

"Nah," Carrie walked to the passenger's side, a sharp smile on her face. "Some wise guy I know once said that living forever won't make anything better, it's just welching."

Dean chuckled, opening the driver's door.

"Did you call your dad? Maybe he could get something out of that Rufus guy,"

"About that," Dean sighed. "I think he's in trouble. He hasn't picked up his phone, hasn't updated for a couple of days now."

"So?"

"I don't want to do this…"

"Do what? Where are we going?" Carrie asked as she heard the engine flip over.

"We're going to California."

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	8. They Weren't Born to Follow

**I really didn't take much time to edit this but I probably will whn I'm really bored. Sorry about any spelling errors or anything.**

* * *

"Here," Dean held out a velvet box to Carrie as they were on the road to California. She slowly took in from his hand, inspecting it with fragile fingers before flipping the metal lock open to find a shining car key inside.

"You didn't!" She gasped, her grin shining in her eyes.

"No, I didn't." He replied calmly, focusing between the traffic and her excited gawking. "Bobby sent it over this morning. Said it was for your birthday or something."

"How did he know it my birthday today?"

"Lucky guess, I guess." Dean shrugged sheepishly, remembering with a frown what she told him that day in the hospital after the shifter attack.

_Once I get my own car then I'm out. No more hospital bills, no more horrible singing, no more me. Just wait for that day. I'm serious._

"What are you going to do with a car, Cassie?"

"I'm going to drive it, duh. What model did he say it was?"

"Uh," Dean dragged on, trying to kill time before answering. "I think he said it was an Oldsmobile."

"What?" She whined. "I have to drive a caboodle while you get to cruise around in the Impala? Damn, doesn't he know how to pick 'em."

"Relax, blondie. It's a '72 Plymouth Fury."

"That doesn't sound so bad," She settled with a minute smile, feeling the cool metal key rub against her rough fingertips.

Dean didn't reply. He knew he should have been happy. She would always be in the line of danger when she was with him. But who would bust her out and protect her if he didn't?

He should have been happy. He was going to see Sammy. That was all that mattered, right?

Carrie spent the rest of the trip happily humming to herself. He could see the cogs in her head turning and twisting, trying to make sense of all of it.

*****They Weren't Born to Follow*****

"What are you doing?" Carrie asked when Dean pulled into an empty parking lot and geared the Impala to a stop. He looked at her and, without a word, opened the door and stood under the warm sun. She followed with a panicked look on her face.

"You're getting a car," Dean said. "might as well know how to drive one."

"You want me to drive the Impala?" She questioned skeptically.

"Don't hate on my baby." He rounded the car and pushed her toward the driver's door, tossing her the keys. Carrie sat at the wheel, adjusting herself to get the feel of sitting at the head seat. "Check the rear view mirrors and the side mirrors."

"Okay," She awkwardly tipped the rear view mirror down so she could easily glance at it.

"Good," Dean continued. "You know how to ride a bike? Think of a car like a bike. The back wheels rotate in one straight line no matter what and that leaves you to adjust the direction of the front wheels to wherever you want to go. Don't make sharp turns when the roads are wet. Don't try to look cool like me by using one hand on the steering wheel. I swear, Makarov, you screw up my car and I'll kill you."

"Duly noted," She mumbled, pressing on the gas once before gearing the Impala to drive.

"Don't take your foot off the clutch too fast or the car will stall out. Let your foot off of it slow."

Between Dean's annoying instructions and her prior knowledge, Carrie was driving down the main highway and toward California within the hour. She reached over and switched on the radio. _Larger than Life _by the Backstreet Boys blared. Dean groaned and began to change the station when Carrie shoved his hand away.

"Car rules, Winchester: Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole." She started to sing at the top of her lungs. "There are prices to fame, alright all of our time spent in flashes of light!"

"Keep your eyes on the road, kid."

"If we were friends in another life, Dean, we would be more than friends. We would be like a small gang." She took one hand off the steering wheel.

"What did I say about using both hands, Makarov?"

*****They Weren't Born to Follow*****

She lingered in the shadows. Rolling her eyes the moment Dean ordered her to stand on watch after they had broke into Sam's apartment. He had had a huge grin on his face and she hadn't seen that in a long time. It made her feel sort of safe.

She eyed Dean walking past the string of beads at the far end of the hall and could immediately see Sam's large figure move to another part of the apartment and wait. As Dean entered the kitchen his brother lunged forward and grabbed his shoulder, coiling his arm back to throw a punch which Dean easily knocked away. Carrie casually watched the two Winchester's block and duck until Dean had Sam pinned to the floor, one hand gripping his neck and the other on his wrist.

"Whoa, easy, tiger."

"Dean?" Sam breathed heavily with a shocked expression. "You scared the crap out of me!"  
"That's 'cause you're out of practice." Dean laughed, but stopped short when Sam yanked his hand and slammed his heel into his brother's back and twisting him against the hard floor.

Carrie silently wrapped her arm under Sam's neck and put him into a half-nelson.

"Or not. Get off of me. And let go of him, for God's sake, Carrie. This isn't Russia."

Carrie slowly let her grip around Sam's neck loosen and shyly stood back while the brother's had their obviously emotional moment.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam spat, trying to keep him voice low and constantly glancing toward the hall while ignoring Carrie's existence.

"Well, I was looking for a beer." Dean put his hand on his brother's shoulder and shook it once.

"What the hell are you doing here?

"Okay. All right. We gotta talk."

"Uh, the phone?"

"If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?"

Carrie winced as a dirty blonde girl in cropped shorts and a short Smurfs shirt stood befuddled at the door.

"Jess. Hey." Sam hesitantly began, noting the approving look that Dean shot at his girlfriend. "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica. Jess, this is Dean and Carrie. She's an old friend."

"Wait, your brother Dean?" Jess squinted with a half-smile.

"Oh, I love the Smurfs. You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league."

"Just let me put something on." She began back to her room but Dean stopped her.

"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously."

"Yes, he would." Carrie mumbled under her breath, feigning innocence when Dean threw her a shut-the-hell-up look.

"Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business. But, uh, nice meeting you."  
"No." Sam said resolutely, going over to put his arm around Jess. "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."

"Okay." Dean began. "Um. Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

"So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later."

"Dad's on a hunting trip." Dean corrected, looking both Sam and Jess straight on. "And he hasn't been home in a few days."

Carrie could see a slight change in Sam's expression when he took everything in. Jess glanced up at him as he said,

"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside."

Carrie went ahead down to the Impala while Dean waited for Sam to change.

"I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you." She heard Sam say.

"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him."

"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine."

"Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with me or not?" They stopped at the top of the stairs.

"I'm not."

"Why not?"

"I swore I was done hunting. For good. And besides, you got Carrie...or some weird version of her anyway."

"Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad."

"Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45."

"Well, what was he supposed to do?" Dean asked, stopping again at the bottom of the stairs.

"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark."

"Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there."

"Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find.

"We save a lot of people doing it, too." Dean sighed, looking out at Carrie leaning against the Impala and lowered his voice. "She's tired, Sam. Tired of it all. I won't let her live like this. She has too much too loose."

"You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" Sam changed the subject. "The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors."

The two Winchester's crossed the parking lot to where Carrie was still guarding the Impala when Dean said,

"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?"

"No. Not normal. Safe."

"And that's why you ran away." He looked away.

"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it. I can't do this alone."

"Yes, you can." Sam opposed quietly.

"Yeah, well, I don't want to."

"What was he hunting?" Sam sighed, finding no point in fighting with his brother. Dean walked to the trunk and propped the compartment open with a shotgun.

"All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?" He mumbled while he went through the clutter.

"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?"

"Me and Carrie were working another gig. This, uh, zombie thing over in Pennsylvania."

"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?"

"I'm twenty-six, dude. Besides being a drag, Carrie's good at playing bait." Dean joked, pulling out papers from a folder that he and Carrie made a couple of hours ago. "All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy. They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA."

"So maybe he was kidnapped." Sam shrugged, handing the article from the Jericho Herald back to Dean who knocked on the window to get Carrie's attention and motioned her to get out of the car.

"Tell Sam that this wasn't a kidnapping,"

"Andrew Carey wasn't the only one." She said off the top of her head. "There's another one in April. Another one in December '04, '03, '98, '92, ten of them over the past twenty years. All men, all the same five-mile stretch of road."

"She's a powerhouse. Tell me again why you need me, Dean?"

Dean glanced up at Sam. "It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. We haven't heard from him since, which is bad enough. Then Carrie gets this voicemail yesterday." He pulled out a tape recorder and pressed play.

"Blackbird...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger." John's voice was blocked with static.

"You know there's EVP on that?" Sam smirked.

"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it? All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got." Dean pressed play again and a woman's voice eerily said,

"I can never go home..."

"Never go home?" Sam repeated, his eyebrows furrowed.

"You know, in almost two years we've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing." Dean leaned against the trunk once he shut it.

"All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him. But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here."

"What's first thing Monday?" Dean asked as Sam walked back to the apartment building.

"I have this...I have an interview."

"What, a job interview? Skip it."

"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school?" Dean smirked but Carrie's face was dead serious.

"So we got a deal or not?"

"Yes," She butt in before Dean could oppose. "I promise he won't bother you after this."

Sam nodded and disappeared into the building.

"Look, Dean, I know you want him to stick around but he's got his own life now. The whole world may you leave you hanging but Sam will always be there for you. That much I know. And remember," She said with a wry grin. "I can always pick you up when you land on your face."

"Real inspirational, Harrington. What do you want, a nice prize?"

"I'd like for you to shut up, maybe."

"No," He looked over his shoulder. "the trick is getting _you _to shut up."

"Now I know why Sam left," She chuckled but stopped when Dean snapped.

"You don't know why Sam left."

"Okay, no need do get so hostile, jamf. Just a few more days,"

"Few more days until what?"

Carrie looked up at him. "Till I…go my own way."

"You were serious?"

"What, do you miss me already?"

He shrugged. "I wouldn't mind if you stuck around for a little longer, blondie."

"Oh, God," Carrie groaned, walking to the other side of the car, sarcastically saying, "you're breaking my heart, Winchester. You really are. I'm just waiting for the waterworks here."

"You're just jealous."

"Jealous is a strong word. I would say damned. What I thought when I heard fighting monsters was the whole Dirty Harry gig, not another way of saying adopting a grown man who can't take care of himself."

"Despite the look on my million dollar face," Dean pointed at his face. "you are still talking."

Carrie crossed her arms and said to Sam as he quietly stalked over with his duffel over his shoulder. "Is there a cure for stupidity?"

"No," He replied, glancing at his brother. "it just becomes a mental illness."

"Nice to have you back, Sammy." Dean said under his breath, getting into the Impala and making sure Carrie was safe in the backseat before taking off to Jericho before it fell apart.

*****They Weren't Born to Follow*****

"So, how was he?" Sam asked Carrie as _Ramblin' Man _by the Allman Brothers played on the speakers while Dean was grabbing food from the convenience store.

"Oh, you know, classy, sassy, and really smart assy."

"I know what you mean," He grinned, rifling through a box of cassettes with the door open.

"She seems nice. Jess, I mean. You must really like her."

"I do," He smiled back at her as Dean came back to the car with an armful of junk food.

"Hey, you want breakfast?"

Sam shook his head. "So how'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?"

"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career. Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."

"Tell him what names you wrote on the application this time," Carrie chimed in, her head in-between their shoulders.

"Uh, Burt Aframian." Dean chuckled. "And his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal."

"And Carrie?" Sam swung his legs back into the car and closed the door.

"I'm the picture perfect princess. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be a princess. Whoever screwed that up better fix that shit."

"Yeah, that would be you," Dean pointed out.

"I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection." Sam said, still looking through the albums, most of which were hand-labeled.

"Why?"

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two: Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica? It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."

"He makes a well stated argument," Carrie smirked as the engine started.

"Well, house rules, Sammy." Dean popped an AC/DC cassette into the player. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."

"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old. It's Sam, okay?"

Dean cupped his hand behind his ear as _Back in Black _started to play. "Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud."

"Do you want me hit him for you?"

"No, it's fine. But thanks Carrie."

*****They Weren't Born to Follow*****

Carrie was picking at the lint on the back of Dean's collar while Sam was talking on his cell phone. They would reach Jericho in seven miles and Sam had gotten tired of their constant squabbling.

"All right." He closed his phone. "So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue. So that's something, I guess."

"Check it out," Dean motioned to the road. There were several police cars at the bridge ahead of them and a couple of officers. He pulled over to the side of the road and opened the glove compartment to pull out a box full of ID cards.

"Let's go." Dean got out of the car but stopped when Carrie began too. "Not you, blondie. Guard the car." He tossed her the keys for good measure.

With a huff, she watched as the two Winchester's approached the scene like they belonged there and nearly laughed out loud when Sam stepped on Dean's foot and Dean smacked his brother's head.

"How'd it go, ladies?" She asked when they came back. "Any connections between the victims?"

"No, it's clean." Sam answered. "We should probably get into town. We'll find the vic's girlfriend there."

*****They Weren't Born to Follow*****

"I bet you, that's her." Dean pointed to the girl tacking up papers in front of the movie theaters. "You must be Amy."

"Yeah." The girl turned.

"Yeah, Troy told us about you. We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy and Carrie—she's just a friend of ours."

"He never mentioned you to me." She began to walk and the three hunters walked along with her.

"Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much, we're up in Modesto." Dean stuck his hands in his pockets when Sam continued,

"So, we're looking for him too, and we're kinda asking around."

"Hey, are you okay?" Another girl came up to Amy, who nodded, with sympathetic eyes.

"You mind if we ask you a couple questions?" Sam asked and lead the two girls to a diner close by while Carrie fell behind.

"You coming, Carrie?" Dean asked when he noticed that she was still standing at the corner.

"Yeah, uh. No. I'm just going to take a walk. I need the fresh air."

"Uh, okay." Dean said coming toward her with concerned eyes. "You know where we'll be. Meet us at the library in maybe twenty minutes."

Carrie nodded and started down toward the Impala. Once she was out of Dean's sight, she pulled out her phone and tried John's number. When he didn't answer, she called Bobby.

"Hey, Bunny," His voice made her smile.

"Hey, Bobby, thanks for the birthday present."

"I've got her all fixed up for you, darling. The rims are as bright as your smile. All you gotta do is come over here and start her up. Where are you two?"

"Oh," She looked around and ducked into an alley. "we're just tagging along with Sam for a job. It won't take too long. Hey, Bobby, you haven't heard from John, have you?"

"Uh, nope. Why?"

"No reason. I gotta go. I'll see you soon, Bobby."

Carrie walked down the dirty alley, taking her time by stopping every time something interesting caught her eye. It wasn't that she was jealous. It was more that she didn't like being the dreaded third wheel.

Sam and Dean were butting heads when she made a beeline to them in the library.

"Let me try."

"I got it."

"Dude!" Dean cried when Sam shoved his chair from the computer. "You're such a control freak."

"Didn't your dad ever teach you not to talk about people behind their backs, Dean?" Carrie asked, pulling her canvas bag over her head and setting it on the table besides Dean.

"No," Dean mused as he grabbed her bag and began rummaging through it. "He taught us how to kill monsters and load guns. What'd your dad teach you?"

"He taught me how to shoot smart asses in the face."

"Angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?" Sam asked from the computer.

"Yeah," Dean and Carrie said in unison.

"Well, maybe it's not murder. This was 1981. Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river." He scooted his chair out of the way so they could see the picture of a young woman on the screen.

"Does it say why she did it?" Dean asked, and Sam nodded. "What?"

"An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die. 'Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it,' said husband Joseph Welch."

"That bridge look familiar to you?" Carrie pointed at the picture with the husband standing at Sylvania Bridge.

That night they walked along the empty bridge, stopping to lean on the railing to look down at the river.

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive." Dean remarked, edging close enough toward Carrie to grab her if anything happened.

"So you think Dad would have been here?" Sam looked over at his brother.

"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him."

"Okay, so now what?" Carrie, leading the party, turned around to ask, a bit taken aback by Dean's closeness.

"Now we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while."

"Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday—" Sam stopped.

"Monday. Right. The interview. Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?"

"Maybe. Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?"

"No, and she's not ever going to know."

"Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."

"Dean," Carrie tugged at his sleeve. "Don't make waves. Not now."

"And who's that?" Sam demanded, following his brother.

"You're one of us."

"No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."

"You have a responsibility to—"

"To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back.

"Guys," Carrie said gently, trying to keep them at a safe distance.

"Don't talk about her like that." Dean grabbed Sam's collar.

"This shouldn't even be Carrie's life, Dean. She should be getting ready for college. She should have a boyfriend. She should be happy."

"I really appreciate you planning out my life but this is stupid." She put a hand on Dean's chest, forcing him to back off. Sam quickly walked away, not noticing the way that Dean was staring at the edge of the bridge.

"Sam." Dean said loud enough for his brother to hear. Constance looked over at the three of them then stepped forward off the edge. The three hunters ran to the railing to look over at the water.

"Where'd she go?" Carrie breathed, a chill slithering down her spine.

"I don't know." Dean said beside her as the Impala engine started and the headlights came on. "What the—"

"Who's driving your car?" Sam looked over to see his brother pull the keys out of his pockets just as the car jerked into motion and came charging at them.

"Go! Go!" Sam shoved Carrie a little way in front of him and pulled her over the railing with him before the car ran them over. They clung to the metal railings of the bridge.

"Dean? Dean!" Carrie screamed, glancing around her to see no sign of him. There was splashing from the water below. Without a second thought she let go of the railing but was suspended in the air when Sam caught her wrist. He pulled her up onto the bridge just to see Dean crawling out of the water and onto he mud.

"What?" He shouted back, cranky and filthy.

"Hey! Are you all right?"

"I'm super." He replied, holding up an A-Okay sign with his hand.

Sam let out a relieved laugh and scooted Carrie away from the edge.

"You were about to jump,"

"Wouldn't you have?" She said back, eyeing as Dean stumbled up the hill to the where they stood at the middle of the bridge.

"Is your car alright?" Sam asked as Dean shut the hood of the Impala and leaned against it.

"Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now. That Constance chick, what a bitch!" Dean screamed so Constance would hear.

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure. So where's the job go from here, genius?"

Dean threw his arms up in frustration, mud flying off his clothing.

"You smell like a toilet." Carrie sniffed, looking up at Dean.

*****They Weren't Born to Follow*****

"One room, please." Dean stood at the motel check-in desk, still caked in mud, with Sam and Carrie lingering a bit farther behind him.

"You guys having a reunion or something?" The clerk asked after looking at the card they had used to check in with.

"What do you mean?"

"I had another guy, Burt Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month."

Dean and Sam shared a look and played it off while they got a room.

"You two Irish Creamers?" The clerk asked, glancing at Carrie.

"They're brothers," She pointed to the Winchester's. "I'm adopted."

"Dammit, Sam," Dean snapped over his shoulder with a mischievous grin. "did you tell her?"

Carrie childishly shrugged at the clerk who pushed the room key over to Dean who nodded with a charming nod.

Before going to their own room, they went for the room that the clerk had said was Burt Aframian's. Sam and Dean stood around Carrie as she picked the lock with a stray hairpin that was nearly hidden in the seams of her bag. She and Sam entered first before Sam grabbed Dean's collar, yanking him inside. They looked to see that every vertical surface was covered in maps, newspaper clippings, pictures, and tightly scribbled notes. There were books on the desk and assorted junk on the floor and on the bed.

Dean turned on the lamp by the bed, his eyes immediately catching a half-eaten hamburger on the lampstand. Carrie grabbed it from his hands before he could smell it to see if it was good or not.

"I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least." Dean frowned boyishly at her mother-like scowl.

"Nice observation, Sherlock." Carrie mumbled, watching Sam run the grains from the salt line by the door.

"Salt, cats-eye shells...he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in." The youngest Winchester said. "What have you got here?"

"Centennial Highway victims." Dean pointed to an article on the wall, a list of all the different victims. "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"

"They're all white?" Carrie contributed.

"Don't be racist, Carrie. Just because you're Russian doesn't mean you're right all the time."

"Right," She rebutted. "and being an egotistical giant does?"

"Dad figured it out." Sam said in the background.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white."

"You sly dogs." Dean grinned. "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."

"She might have another weakness."

"Well, Dad would want to make sure. He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?"

"No, not that I can tell." Sam tapped on the picture of Joseph Welch. "If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband. If he's still alive."

"All right." Dean turned to Carrie. "Why don't you, uh, see if you can find an address, I'm gonna get cleaned up."

"Hey, Dean?" Sam said after him. "What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry."

"No chick-flick moments." Dean said holding his hand up. "I get enough of that from Carrie."

"All right. Jerk."

"Bitch."

Sam laughed as Dean disappeared into the bathroom. His smile faded when he spotted a rosary handing in front of a mirror and a picture of John sitting on the hood of an Impala with a boy in a baseball hat standing next to him and another boy on his lap.

"You're lucky to have Dean for a brother." Carrie said, brushing through some loose pieces of paper.

"Why's that?" Sam asked, looking up from the picture.

"He cares about you. He…He'd do anything for you. I would give anything to have that."

"You've got me and Dean, Carrie. We'd do that for you too."

"You know, they say that the strongest thing—the most unbreakable bond—is family. And any noob can feel like part of a family. Look, I know it's not my place to say but Dean needs you. More than ever. I can't promise that I'll always be here for him."

"Where would you go?"

"Wherever the wheel in the sky takes me."

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	9. She's a Fire of Unknown Origin

**Mayrem, I hope you like the end of this chapter. It's for you :) **

**All lyrics used in this chapter rightfully belong to either Led Zeppelin or Rodney Atkins.**

**And please excuse any mistakes made in this chapter.**

* * *

Sam paced for a few minutes before sitting on the bed and dialing his voicemail.

"Hey, it's me, it's about ten-twenty Saturday night—" Jess' voice said just as Dean, now clean, came out of the bathroom, pausing at the entrance to the room.

"Where's Carrie?" A sound of panic laced his voice. "You were supposed to look after her, Sam,"

Sam looked up. "Relax. She said you'd be hungry and went to grab something to eat in that diner down the street. Said Aframian's buying."

"I'll go meet up with her." Dean decided. "You want anything?"

"No."

"Aframian's buying."

Sam shook his head, looking back down at his phone as Dean grabbed his jacket, shrugging it on one of his shoulder as he crossed the room and out the door.

"So come home soon, okay? I love you." Jess ended and he pushed the button, putting the phone to his ear.

"What?"

"Dude, five-oh, take off." Dean said in a hurried, yet even, voice.

"What about you?" Sam stood, looking for a way out.

"Uh, they kinda spotted me. Get Carrie and go find Dad." Then the line was cut.

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin *****

Sam met Carrie just as she was walking out of the rinky-dink diner with a bagful of take-out. She began to smile but realized that he was wearing a full 'monkey suit' otherwise known as a cheap dark ensemble.

"What happened?"

"You know those feds from the bridge?" She nodded. "They bagged Dean."

"So," Carrie motioned to his outfit. "We're going callin'?"

"You seem unusually okay with Dean getting arrested." He noted as they walked toward the Impala. She shrugged.

"I've gotten used to it. Do I have to suit-up or what?"

"No," Sam looked down at Carrie who was casual in ripped jeans and an old Creedence Clearwater Revival shirt that Dean had bartered for her a few months ago after he had won a game of Texas Hold 'Em. "You're fine."

She simply nodded and sat in the front seat, setting the bag of food by her feet. "Where're we going?"

"To Joseph Welch's. I think I've got an upper hand on him."

"You're not worried about Dean?"

Sam glanced at her for a moment. "He can take care of himself. Back there, when you were talking about unbreakable bonds…Dean and I have a weird relationship. I mean, he's my brother. But, for what it's worth, he cares about you more than you can understand. You may want to leave, Carrie, but no matter what, you'll always be under Dean's wing. Whenever, if ever, you decide to go your own way that probably won't change."

"And I thought I was the touchy feely type," She joked. "You take the cake, Sam."

"Dean's really rubbed off on you."

"I wouldn't say it's a bad thing." Carrie smiled. "So, hypothetically speaking, if I were to catch the next train to Clarksville you wouldn't tell him, right?"

"I think he would be able to figure out that you left by himself."

"I see smartass-ery runs in the family." She rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath.

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin*** **

Sam and Carrie walked down the driveway along with Joseph Welch a little while later. Junk was piled down the long cement driveway which reminded Carrie of Bobby.

"Yeah, he was older, but that's him." Mr. Welch said handing Sam the picture of John that he had found in the motel room. "He came by three or four days ago. Said he was a reporter."

"That's right." Sam said, tucking the picture into his pocket. "We're working on a story together."

"Well, I don't know what the hell kinda story you're working on. The questions he asked me,"

"About your wife Constance?" Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

"He asked me where she was buried."

"And where is that again?"

"What, I gotta go through this twice?"

"It's fact-checking." Carrie put in, politely adding, "If you don't mind."

"Aren't you a bit too young to be driving around with a grown man all by yourself, miss?"

"I'm an intern." She put on her best smile, trying to control her irritation. "And last time I checked, shadowing your older brother wasn't a crime."

Welch stared at her before slowly saying, "In a plot. Behind my old place over on Breckenridge."

"And why did you move?" Sam continued.

"I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died."

"Mr. Welch," He stopped, glancing over at Welch who looked like someone was trying to stick a worm up his nose. "did you ever marry again?"

"No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known."

"Have known," Carrie corrected under her breath. "'Prettiest woman I _have_ ever known.'"

"So you had a happy marriage?"

"Definitely." Welch nodded with hesitation.

"Well, that should do it. Thanks for your time." Sam said, motioning to Carrie to start toward the Impala. "Mr. Welch, did you ever hear of a woman in white?"

Joseph turned around on his way back to his house with a skeptical frown. "A what?"

"A woman in white." Sam repeated. "Or sometimes weeping woman? It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really. Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women. You understand. But all share the same story."

Carrie sighed when she shuffled behind Sam as he walked back to Welch.

"Boy, I don't care much for nonsense." Welch began walking away, dismissively throwing his hand in the air but, just l like any other Winchester, Sam didn't give up that easily.

"See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them. And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children. Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again."  
"You think," Welch's eyes were scrunched in two piercing slits. "you think that has something to do with Constance? You smartass!"

"You tell me." Sam fired back.

"I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!" His face was shaking with anger or grief, Carrie found it impossible to differentiate. After a long moment, Welch turned away making his guilt obvious.

"Let's go," Sam sighed, nudging her back toward the Impala.

"What about Dean?"

"You got your phone on you?"

Once Carrie had ran a list of all her failures through her head and got the waterworks going, she called the cops. She said her name was Tina Weymouth and that she had been kidnapped. Halfway through the conversation, which was constantly being interrupted by her choking and wheezing, she snapped the phone shut, and destroyed the SIM card.

"I'm impressed," Sam grinned, glancing at her wipe the tears from under her eyes.

"My momma didn't raise no fool. So, where to?"

"I'm thinking about going down to Constance's plot."

"I saw a church in town. Do you think you can drop me off there on the way?"

Sam gave her a weird look which made Carrie roll her eyes.

"Dude, the most I can do in a church is claim sanctuary or become a penguin. I'm not going to hit the road."

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin*****

Carrie had been sitting in the back of the church for a quite a while. She watched the few people that were praying at the alter or at the front pews. Catholicism didn't bode too well with her. Too much commitment. She fancied herself to being a Protestant. Just because her line of work challenged the existence of a higher power didn't mean that she wasn't obligated to her own preference.

"You're not very good at hide and seek, you know."

She looked back and saw Dean sitting in the pew behind her, he had a relived smile on his face.

"I never asked you to come looking for me."

"I'd do it anyway." He said as he got up and came around to sit beside her, throwing a casual arm over the back of the pew. "I know all your tricks. But fake 911 call? Makarov, I don't know, that's pretty illegal."

"It was all Sam." She chuckled lightly. "He may be the size of the Empire State Building but he's sharp."

"What can I say: he gets his good looks from me."

Carrie didn't reply; instead she leaned her head back on his arm, staring up at the ceiling. "Can I have my gun back?" She turned her eyes over to him, her neck still strained.

"We can talk about it later,"

"No," Carrie raised her head and turned to face him with a firm expression. "Dean, why are you turning a blind eye? Why haven't you hauled me back home to my parents? That's what you said that you were going to do the day we met."

"Do you want to go back to your parents, Carrie?"

She shook her head, looking more like a lost child to Dean than anything else. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

_What happened to that quiet girl_, he thought, smiling to himself.

"What'd you and Sammy find out from Welch?"

"He was cheating on his wife. She's buried behind her old house, so that's where Sam's heading now. Did you find out what happened to your dad?"

"Well," Dean squinted, looking toward the front of the church. "All I know is that he's not here anymore."

"Why didn't he burn Constance's body?"

"That's what he's got us for," He gently punched her shoulder, reaching into his pocket when his phone rang. "Sam?"

"Take me home. I can never go home."

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin*****

By the time Carrie and Dean got to the old house, Constance was straddled on Sam's lap in the front seat of the Impala. Dean pulled the trigger, shattering the window making Constance vanish. She reappeared again but Carrie kept emptying clips. Sam sat up and started the car, driving forward, smashing through the side of the house. It took Dean a minute to recover but when he did, he sprinted through the wreckage to the passenger side of the Impala

"Sam! Sam! You okay? Can you move?"

"Yeah. Help me,"

Dean leaned through the window to give his brother a hand, knowing that Carrie had her eyes on Constance who picked up a large framed photograph of her and her children. Once Sam was out of the car, Constance made a bureau pin the two brothers against the Impala. Carrie was just about to shoot another round into her but then the lights flickered and water started to pour from the staircase. The boy and girl from the photograph were standing at the top, holding hands, and saying in chorus,

"You've come home to us, Mommy." They suddenly appeared behind her, embracing her tightly. Constance's image flickered and, with a surge of energy, they melted into a puddle in the floor. Sam and Dean shoved the bureau away from them and stood where Constance and her children vanished.

"So this is where she drowned her kids." Dean let out a heavy breath.

"That's why she could never go home." Sam said. "She was too scared to face them."

"You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy." Dean slapped him on the chest where Constance had burned into him with her fingertips. Sam laughed through the pain.

"Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"

"Hey. Saved your ass." Dean leaned over to look at the damages done to his prized possession, twisting around to look at Sam. "I'll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car, I'll kill you."

Carrie never felt so alone.

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin*****

That night the Impala tore down the highway, the right headlight busted. Dean could fix that up easily.

**"**Okay, here's where Dad went." Sam said, leaning over John's journal.** "**It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."

**"**Sounds charming. How far?" Dean asked, glancing into the rear-view mirror to see Carrie.

**"**About six hundred miles."

**"**Hey, if we shag ass we could make it by morning."

Sam hesitated.

**"**Dean, I, um...The interview's in like, ten hours. I gotta be there."

Dean nodded, obviously disappointed, and returned his attention to the road.  
"Yeah. Yeah, whatever. I'll take you home." He said. "Looks like it's going to just be you and me, Makarov."

"I have to pee," Carrie said loud enough for Dean to start speeding for the next rest stop.

All three of them got out of the car when they reached the sketchy looking rest stop. Carrie made her way toward the woman's bathroom, absently noticing a car at the far end of the lot. She found that the bathroom door was lock and bolted from the inside. She used her shoulder, ramming into the metal door with her weight but it didn't open. With an irritated final kick, she walked around to the other restroom.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked, holding her at an arm's length when she nearly ran into him.

"The other bathroom's locked. Can you see if there is anyone in the men's?"

"How can the woman's bathroom be locked?" He chuckled.

"You figure that one out, you got yourself a nice prize."

"Dean's really rubbed off on you, hasn't he?" Sam shook his head, checking the bathroom before giving her thumbs up. Carrie rushed into a stall just as Dean finished washing his hand. He stared after her as she hurried.

"Is nothing sacred anymore?" He muttered.

"Uh, can you guys leave?" Carrie said from her stall, trying to silently climb onto the tank to reach the small window.

She peeked over the top of the barrier and made sure that the bathroom was empty. Climbing out of the window as quietly as she could, Carrie landed in the soft grass and stalked around the building toward the car at the far end of the lot. She hid in the shadows; her heart broke when she heard Dean screaming her name into the darkness. This brought out a couple from the woman's bathroom, their hair ruffled and clothing wrinkled. Carrie broke into the trunk and climbed in, taking one last glance at Dean and Sam Winchester who stood like toy soldiers in the far light of the moon.

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin*****

"Is he ready?" Carrie asked Bobby. He nodded silently, handing her a fake license until she could get her own.

"Don't be a stranger, Carrie,"

She smiled at Bobby's gruff face, sliding into the front seat of the Plymouth Fury and feeling the cool steering wheel under her hand.

"You'll keep mum, right? You won't tell Dean, will you?"

"Depends,"

"Come on, Bobby. I'll keep tabs with you. Just don't tell Dean. I can't face him after this."

Bobby sighed. "Just git, bunny. You're wasting daylight and if I know that boy, he'll come here like he's got hellhounds on his heel."

Carrie closed the door, giving Bobby a small wave before backing up—just like Dean taught her how to—and charging out of the Salvage Yard.

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin*****

"Where is she, Bobby?" Dean hurried into the old house. "I know she was here."

"Leave her alone, Dean."

"No," He almost shouted. "I need to know where she is. I won't bother her. I just need to know. Come on, Bobby, please." Dean pleaded, his shoulders hunched over pathetically.

Bobby sighed, setting his drink on the table. "Her license plate is ST5168."

Sam and Dean leaned over the laptop and blanched when the indicator said that the license plate was still in the Yard.

"It says she's still here," Sam murmured, glancing at Dean who covered his eyes with his hand.

"She switched the plates."

"How do you know?" His brother questioned.

"I know because that's what I taught her to do."

"Well," Bobby now said. "what else did you teach her? Maybe you two can follow her."

"I taught her how to cover her tracks." Dean grit his teeth. "Forget it. She knows where I'll be. She knows to call me if she needs help."

"She did leave this for you though," Bobby handed Dean a folded piece of paper with Carrie's neat handwriting.

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin*****

Carrie stood in front of a beautiful beach house of the shore of the Chesapeake Bay. She rapped the door with her bruised, scarred knuckles. A tall, well-built blond answered the door, his green eyes sunken and red.

"Liam," She whispered under her breath.

*****She's a Fire of Unknown Origin*****

"'Dean,'" Sam read aloud. "'Don't worry, I've got a pocketful of gold and I'll be travelling on the riversides while the misty mountains hop and ramble on about what is and should never be. I hope you never meet the black dog on the stairway to heaven. I'll be over the hills and far away. By the way, if you're going through hell, keep on going. Don't slow down. If you're scared, don't show it. You might get out before the devil even knows you're there. Thanks for the two years. Cassie.'" Sam turned to Dean. "Cassie?"

"It's Carrie." Dean corrected with a sad smile.

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	10. We're Only Dust in the Wind

**This chapter is a wee bit short, sorry about that. It's been an exciting few days. I almost broke my knee skiing so posting this chapter is the least I could do :)**

* * *

**FIVE YEARS LATER:**

"Why are you doing this? Is Dean Winchester's life really worth your soul?"

Carrie stood at the center of the crossroads, glaring the dealmaker down.

"It's called love and filial piety. Nothing you'd understand."

"Since you're bent on uprooting that nightmare, we'd better seal the deal, shouldn't we?"

"What more do I have to do?" She demanded.

He smirked, running his tongue over his lips.

"You've got to be kidding me." Carrie groaned and braced herself. "With that face you better be a good kisser."

*****We're Only Dust in the Wind*****

That first breath of fresh air—the very first sign of life—clawed at Dean Winchester's soul. He pulled at the dense soil, forcing his way up toward the blue world. He felt the cold air. He felt the warm sunshine flickering down on his hands as he broke the surface. It was his second chance at a good life. If Dean could feeling anything again then it would be to feel the rush of life soaking back into his body. He gasped for mouthfuls of oxygen. Sweat and dirt stained his ever youthful face. He crawled out of the earth and rolled onto the cool grass; his chest heaving up and down—yearning for the life he had been so cheated out of for ten months.

He had wasted ten months buried six feet underground and for what? To claim reality without a headstone? To consume the lust for freedom and loyalty for the people he loved?

The land of the living tasted sweet. It tasted free and wasn't tainted by the insensate nature of those who were ignorant of divine intervention. His resurrection, in fact, wasn't from above, rather from below, it had been sealed because of one name that exchanged a soul for his life.

Once he cleaned off most of the dirt with his shirt, Dean found the closest road and headed north. It wasn't long until he heard a car but he kept walking. The car geared to a stop on the middle of the road. Dean cast a sidelong glance over his shoulder as a head of black hair appeared over the open door.

"Dean?" A familiar figure slammed the car door shut and ran toward him. It only took a spilt second for Dean to drop his coat and catch Carrie in his strong embrace and she clung to his shoulders like a little kid.

"Where the hell did you go, kid?" Dean held her head between his hands. "Don't leave me like that again."

Carrie hiccupped, swallowing a hard lump in her throat as she squinted back tears and nodded. She wrapped her arms around his neck again, biting her lip to keep the tears from cascading down her face.

"I'll never leave you again, Dean." She assured, tucking her chin over his shoulder blade.

He took a step back, smiling at her. "You better not, ducky."

"I have some food in the car," She thrust her thumb back to the 396 Camaro SS, wiping her damp face with the back of her hand. "I'm only assuming you're hungry."

"I'm always hungry."

*****We're Only Dust in the Wind*****

"So, are you going to tell me why you're trying to hitchhike in the middle of Illinois?" Carrie asked while taking one hand off the steering wheel, and glancing over at Dean chew on the burger she had handed him. "Where's Sam and the Baby? Are they okay? Are you okay? What's going on? Answer me!"

"Jeez, let me finish swallowing. Man, you're still a royal pain in the ass, aren't you?" Dean rolled his eyes, wrapping the half-eaten burger back in the soggy paper and dropping it on his lap.

"You look like you could use a shower."

"A shower sounds nice but I got to get to Sam."

"What, did you swim in mud or something? Dude, you still smell like a toilet."

_Hell does that to a person_, Dean thought. "Were you just passing through?"

"No," She said quietly, averting her eyes back to the road.

"Then, what?"

"I live nearby."

"What?"

"Dude, I'm twenty-one." She laughed. "I'm not little, insecure Ducky anymore. I got a life, an apartment, and a boyfriend. The whole nine-yards."

"Boyfriend, huh? What's his name?"

Carrie, knowing full well that she was treading on thin ice, switched on the radio.

"Stop playing 'Call Me Maybe' dammit," She growled, shoving a cassette tape in instead.

"What?"

"It's this really obnoxious song." Carrie replied. "It was catchy the first three thousand times."

"What was it called again?" He asked with a mischievous smirk.

"'Call Me Maybe.'"

"Hi, Maybe."

Carrie tried to keep from laughing but just shook her head. "Hilarious. Still acting your shoe size, I see."

"Still not getting with the program, I see." He challenged with a wide grin, reaching over to take her wrist and put her free hand back on the steering wheel.

"Don't be a smartass, Dean."

"I won't if you won't."

"Seriously," She said in a low, somber tone. "get your shit together, Dean. You're thirty years old. You shouldn't be hiking through Illinois without money or a phone."

"When did you get a giant stick up your ass, Carrie?"

Carrie didn't answer, she just looked out the windshield wondering how the hell she'd tell him how long she had left to live. How could she tell him that she wanted to spend every second of every day with him to make her sorry life worth-while?

*****We're Only Dust in the Wind*****

"Nice pad," Dean complimented, picking up a framed picture of Carrie and a guy kissing at a New Year's party. He grimaced in disgust and put it down loudly, looking around as he followed her to the living room. "I don't see any bongs in sight. I'll admit, I'm a bit disappointed."

"The bathroom is the second door to the left." Carrie dumped a towel and an one of his old shirts that she'd borrowed off from him years ago into Dean's hands. "Liam's going to be here in a couple of minutes so be nice. The last thing I need is him getting pissed because you were mouthing off."

"What can I say, ducky?" Dean shrugged, kissing the top of her hair. "You only get what you give."

"Just don't overwhelm him all at once with what you call charm."

"Right," Dean walked backwards toward the bathroom. "'cause I'm sure you do it enough for the both of us. That little prick should know that he can run, but he'll just die tired."

"Go take a shower, Dean." She rubbed her eyes.

"Hey, what's that?" He came back, pointing down at her shirt then tapping her nose when she looked down. "Boop."

"I'll call Bobby and tell him you're just hunky dory." Carrie chuckled quietly, pulling out her phone and pointing Dean toward the bathroom with a stern look. "Five years and you're still spewing the same old drivel, Winchester. Does it ever work?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Amazed." She sarcastically muttered as he disappeared into the bathroom before pressing the call button.  
"Carrie?" Sam's voice was panicked. "Did you find him? Is he okay?"

"I'm just peachy, thanks for the support, Samuel. I knew I could always count on you."

"Can I talk to him?"

The apartment door lock rattled.

"He's taking a shower," Carrie quickly said. "I'll talk to you later, I swear."

She snapped the phone shut just as Liam entered, surprised to see her standing aloof in the middle of the room.

"Did somebody die or something?" He grinned, planting a kiss on her cheek before standing up straight and listening. "Is someone singing _Bohemian Rhapsody_?"

"I can explain," Carrie began, putting both her hands on his chest to keep him from walking into the bathroom.

"What are you talking about?"

"Remember how I told you about the guy who helped me get out of depression?"

"Yeah, that was me,"

"No," She dragged out, innocently trying to evaluate the situation. "the other guy. Well, he's here so try and be nice. He's got a mean left hook."

"I don't have to be afraid of that prick." Liam scoffed.

"Okay, whatever you say. Just please be nice. I think he's the closest I've ever gotten to a big brother."

"Hey, you crazy kids," Dean walked barefoot out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his head like a turban and going straight for the fridge. "You got a beer?"

Carrie stared after him. "Dean, this is my boyfriend Liam Mason. Liam this is Dean."

"Hey," Liam held out a hand. "nice towel."

"Thanks," Dean replied with a smirk. "makes me feel like Paris Hilton."

Carrie groaned, covering her eyes with her hand and then pulled the towel off of Dean's head. "We have to get you back to Bobby's."

"Wait a minute," Liam butt in. "who the hell is Bobby?"

"You didn't tell him?" Dean asked.

"No, of course, I didn't."

"Awkward."

"Tell me what?" Liam furrowed his eyebrows, following Carrie around the apartment while she packed her duffel. "Where are you going?"

"Liam, I swear, I'll just be gone for a couple of days."

"How long?"

"Ten days. Tops."

"What am I going to do without you?"

She smiled. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

"Wait, Carrie, how do you know this Dean guy's not some weird psychopath or something? How do you know he's not bad news?"

"Sometimes you just gotta give people the benefit of the doubt."

"Yeah, I would if you were just another person on the street. I don't want you to get hurt." He took her hand.

"Babe, I think the safest place I can be is with Dean Winchester. Trust me. He may not look like much—"

"I heard that!" Dean shouted from the other room.

"But," Carrie continued, now quieter. "trust me when I say that he's the cream of the crop. He'll keep me safe."

*****We're Only Dust in the Wind*****

"I heard that too," Dean said as he and Carrie loaded up the car.

"Remind me to buy you a trophy." She smirked, rounding the car to the driver's seat while he closed the trunk.

"It's just like old times again." He slid into shotgun not before running his hand over the metal frame work on the Camaro. "You, me… and yeah, you too, Carrie."

"Thank you, Dean. I'm really feeling the love from you Winchester boys today."

"Yeah," He stared out the window, rubbing the back of his neck and trying to think of something else to say.

"We're not very good at small talk, so don't try it."

"We were once." He said. "We just lost things to talk about."

"That's also fondly known as burning bridges, Dean."

"You're pretty good at that."

"I don't enjoy burning bridges. I just regret not burning it with the person on it."

"And Weiner on a Stick was afraid that I was the weird psychopath."

"'Weiner on a Stick' has a name."

"Right, _Liam_." Dean said a bit mockingly. "He kinda reminds me of that shifter that nabbed you when you were a bar wench."

"Don't think I didn't know what you were up to back then. 'Juicy gossip' my ass."

"Yeah," He grinned. "Sorry about that."

"It was a long time ago, Dean. It's one of my better memories."

"Stop right there, Ducky," He put his hand up. "Not the time for your tacky soap-box speeches."

"Hey, don't think I forgot the way you cried when Wilson floated in _Cast Away_."

"That was a powerful relationship, Carrie."

"You're right. The greatest relationship is between a man and his ball."

"I'll have you know I just had dust in my eyes."

"And Axl Rose just has a stick up his ass. Dude, Dean, now you're going to have to capture a wild cougar to regain your manliness."

"I can do that," Dean smiled.

Maybe, just maybe, hell was entirely in the past. Maybe he could look to a bright new future. It'd be him and Carrie and Sammy. Maybe, just maybe, they could be a proper family again.

But every family, biological or not, has its quirks.

And that quirk was coming soon.

* * *

**Ooo, how long do you think Carrie bet her soul? Ten days, ten months, ten years? **

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	11. Carrie's Got a Gun

**Hey everyone, please go check out sweetkiwi604's story _Sticks and Stones! _While you're at it give her all your love :) She's the best!**

* * *

"What are you smiling about?"

"Oh, nothing," Carrie tried keeping a straight face. "I just correctly prophesied the future. I'm driving a sweet ride and you're sitting in shot gun going through your midlife crisis."

"Get off your high horse, Ducky. It was a lucky guess." He looked out the window, flipping his phone through his hand.

"Stop calling me Ducky."

"It's not my fault you remind me of a duck."

She laughed easily, relaxing. "When are you going to give me my gun back? You do still have my gun, right?"

"Yeah, of course," He waved his hand dismissively.

"Dean, I'm serious."

"I have a lot of guns, Carrie." He grinned as if she was joking. "How much longer till we get to Bobby's?"

"Uh, the sun's going down. I thought we should stop for the day. I mean, you were hiking through Illinois."

"Is that how you deal with your problems? Just stop?"

"And then," She continued. "I thought we could get a drink."

"Now you're talking, sister." He punched her arm, a wide grin on his mouth.

*****Carrie's Got a Gun*****

"So, where the hell did you find this Liam guy?" Dean asked over a mug of beer at a small table near the wall. Carrie twisted her mouth to the side prompting Dean to hail down the waitress. "Honey, this one needs a burger."

"I'm not hungry,"

"Yes, you are. Come on, don't keep it all to yourself."

"Liam…" A smile played at her mouth. "was my high school sweetheart. He was my first kiss...my first everything."

"You fell for wiener on a stick." Dean tsk-ed. "Baby move."

"I'm not a baby, Dean. I could give anyone of these dirt-bag's a run for their money."

"Challenge accepted," He chuckled, bring the rim of the glass to his lips while his eyes darted around. "Billiards. Dude with the Mohawk."

Carrie looked causally over her shoulder, studying the tall figure with a smile to die for. He was lean and muscular and had a toothpick hanging out of his mouth.

"I'd tap that," She muttered, turning back to Dean who held out a hundred dollar bill.

"You get him," He nodded toward the guy, "and you win the bet, get a hundred, and watch me get drunk."

"What, and clean up your vomit from my car?" Carrie scoffed. "No way."

"Fine, I won't get _that _drunk."

She grinned, unbuttoning her long black coat to reveal that she was wearing a tight red dress with a plunging neckline. She stood up, throwing the coat on the back of the chair. Dean noticed that every eye turned toward her.

"Never mind," He blushed, quickly shedding his coat and beginning to drape it over her shoulders. Carrie just laughed, putting her hand on his chest and pushing him back in his chair.

"A wise man one said, 'Do what you gotta do to get things done.'"

"Yeah, well, that guy sounds like a real asshole."

"Close." She admitted, shrugging. "It was you."

"I never said that."

"Yeah, you did. Remember during that 'voodoo' thing down in Mississippi?" Carrie grinned again and clicked over to the pool tables. "You boys got room for one more?"

"For you?" The tall guy asked, setting the game and handing her the cue. "Yeah, we can make some room for you. I'm Jason."

"Carrie. I have to warn you," She smoothly pursed her lips, clumsily holding the cue. "I'm a good shot."

"We'll see about that, sweetheart." Jason smirked, sliding the aluminum rack over the eight-ball.

Carrie flipped her now sandy brown hair over her shoulder and leaned over with the cue perfectly poised between her knuckles. Her grip on the back of the cue loosened—just like Dean had taught her—to break. She had a pleased smile on her face when she pocketed two solids. She bent forward again, now feeling the felt lining on her fingertips before feeling Jason's body fold over her own. His hot breath went down her neck and his arm curling around her waist.

"You want a friend?"

Carrie twisted around to face him, leaning the cue on the table to run her hand over the taunt muscles on his torso.

"Friends I have," The corner of her mouth went up into a half-smile. "It's a good time I need." She rigidly arched her back, gripping a handful of his shirt and locking her hip. "You going to let me finish?"

He nodded slowly, taking the cue stick and handing it to her. Carrie purposely missed the pocket, having more important things to win. She made sure that he was just about shoot when she reached up to tie her hair into a messy bun, her breasts moving up and forcing tight against the thin fabric, taking his attention from the shot long enough to miss the pocket.

"Maybe you're having an off day," Carrie glided toward him, rubbing against him long enough for Dean to bury his hand in his eyes—regretting the entire bet. She just laughed again, pocketing two more solids before going for the eight-ball.

Jason started to get agitated. Yeah, getting beat by a girl was hot but each and every one of her languid, rigid motions was infuriating him to the point of insanity. He would be the first person to readily admit that he was turned on. She had spunk. She had charm. She had those things peeking out of her dress. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad to lose. He was in a win-win situation. If he knew anything it would be that he wanted her.

"Tell me something about you that no one else knows," He leaned against the table as her eyes fluttered up from concentrating on her move.

"Well, if I told you my dirty little secret I wouldn't have any to keep for myself, would I?" Carrie made her call, gritting her teeth when she missed the pocket by the inch. The eight-ball bounced off the wall and rolled toward the center of the table. "But, I suppose it wouldn't hurt."

Dean, in the mean time, was telling himself that he had to get up off his ass and stop it. She was just a kid. He pinched himself for subjecting her to sell her body to win a sleazy hundred bucks.

"So, what is it?" Jason asked, pocketing one of his stripes but taking on of her solids too.

"I only have eight days to live."

Jason handed her the cue, watching her with all seriousness as she went for the win.

"I guess you're mine," She chuckled softly, tormenting him with every step that she took her time with rounding the table toward him. "Wanna get out here? I can't keep these clothes on forever."

"Hey, hi." Dean awkwardly stood beside them, smiling with a mocking politeness. "Excuse me, do you mind if I borrowed my little sister?"

"Dean," Carrie growled, obviously annoyed that he had interrupted her progress. "get out of here."

"You won, darling sister. You better let go of her, buddy, before I charge you with statutory rape."

Jason took a quick step back, his mouth wide open as he stuttered to find his words before sprinting out of the bar leaving Carrie absolutely frazzled.

"Wanna see me get drunk?" Dean asked wantonly.

"No." She said. "After you're done opening your liver and spleen try and stumble back to the motel, will ya?"

*****Carrie's Got a Gun*****

Carrie's eyes flashed open to the sound of gut-wrenching pukes in the bathroom. She quickly got to her feet, sitting on her knees and started to rub circles into Dean's back as he leaned over the toilet.

"I see the tequila screwed you over again,"

He answered with another heave of liquid and a groan.

"It happens to the best of us," She got up, kissed his hair with a loud smack and walked toward the kitchenette.

"I am never drinking again," Dean groaned from the bathroom.

"That's the biggest lie I've heard come out of your mouth." Carrie laughed goodheartedly.

"I promise I will." He stumbled in and lay in a heap on her bed.

"Hitler also promised not to invade Czechoslovakia, Dean. Welcome to the real world." She handed him a glass of milk.

"Carrie, you know I hate warm milk."

"Relax, it's not just milk."

He looked up, hesitantly reaching for the glass. "Then what's in it?"

"Nothing you won't eat, Dean." Carrie sat on the corner of the bed, gently taking the cup from him and taking a sip herself just to prove that it was safe. "Drink up, honey."

Dean dry gagged again after one sip. "What the hell is in this? It's sweet." His eyes immediately crossed the room to a bottle of honey that sat on the counter.

"It's a hangover remedy." She quickly said, suppressing her smile when he ran to the bathroom, leaving the milk on the bedside table. "You're such a wimp."

There was a soft knock on the motel room door and Carrie feared that Jason had come back to finish what they didn't have time to start. Surprisingly, Sam stood at the door with a bouquet of flowers.

"Sam?" Dean came forward, tightly embracing his little brother, and then reached for the roses. "Thanks, Sammy."

Instead, Sam handed the flowers to Carrie. "Thanks," She mumbled. "I don't think I carry extra vases around with me but, uh…" She leaned over and picked up an empty Samuel Adams beer bottle. "This'll have to do."

"That's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," Dean commented when the half dozen roses had been individually set in a separate bottle.

"Do you guys need a minute?" Carrie asked, noting the way that Sam kept look at his brother like he had something important to say.

"No," Sam spoke up, taking off his coat and grimacing. "Dude, you smell bad."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You two are never happy, are you?"

"So, what happened?" Sam asked in a quiet tone when Dean was in the shower. "How'd you get him back?"

"Sam, he's back. That should be good enough without questioning me. The ends justify the means."

"How long did you have, Carrie?"

"How do you know I sold my soul, Sam?" Carrie laughed like he was being silly. But Sam remained serious.

"Carrie, you were about to jump off a bridge for him a few years ago. Don't think I don't know that you sold your soul. How long do you have?"

Carrie took a deep breath, trying to focus on something other than Sam's questioning gaze.

"Carrie," He said firmly. "How long do you have?"

"Including the last two nights: eight days."

"What?!" He jumped to his feet, scrubbing his hand along his stubble chin. "We have to fix this. Carrie, do you hear me? We have to fix this right now,"

"And risk Dean taking the first hell-hound back down there? No way."

"I am not letting you die like this! You are too young to be throwing your life away!"

"It's too late, Sam. I don't regret what I did."

"Well, I do. There has to be another way."

"There is no other way. Don't you get it, Sam? I'm done. I'm finished. You may want to change this and you can when hell freezes over, but right now I'm here. I'm here with you and Dean. Just let me die happy."

"What are you talking about, Carrie?" Dean stood at the open bathroom door, glancing between her and his brother. Carrie knew—from the moment that she met Dean's eyes—that she had lost.

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	12. Misery: What I Loved and Hated

**Whoo, this chapter was quite hard to write. I'd appreciate if you could check out a sisfic that sweetkiwi604 and I are writing called "You Don't Know the Meaning of Fear." Hope you read and leave a review :) **

* * *

"What are you talking about?" Dean repeated firmly, daring her to answer.

"Would you believe me if I told you that I was about to pull a hari-cari?" She tried, giving Sam a look to say don't-say-a-word-or-I-will-impale-you-with-a-blunt-object.

"What the hell is a Harry Carry?" Dean exclaimed, realizing that it was just a euphemism for something terrible.

"It's like post-traumatic stress disorder, Dean." She lied, playing it off while making sure not to push his explode button. "It's been, what, seven years since I was about to kick the bucket? It's just been coming back to me suddenly. Sam was just setting me straight." She ended her act with a perfect smile.

"You're okay, right?" Dean pushed her sleeves up to check for cuts then took her head and rotated her neck to see if there was any bruises.

"Yeah, Dean, I'm fine." Carrie pulled his hands off her face, patting his shoulder reassuringly.

*****Misery: What I Loved and Hated*****

"How is she?" Dean asked while he drove the Fury down the highway toward Bobby's. He had finally won his first argument with Carrie. She was now sound asleep in the back seat, her feet sticking out the back window.

"She's still sleeping," Sam replied with slight agitation, reaching back to pull a worn blanket farther under her chin.

"Notice anything different about, Carrie; other than the fact that she's a babe?"

"Uh, no."

"She's happy, Sammy."

"What's wrong with her being happy?"

"Nothing. It's just that she doesn't let anything get under skin anymore. She's calmer now."

"That's not something you should complain about." Sam smiled slightly, trying to formulate everything in his head. "She grew up, Dean."

After another moment of silence Dean spoke again. "What did she do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you really think I'm that stupid, Sam? Did you really think that I couldn't see past her dewy-eyed Susan Hayward act? Did you know her real name is Carina Makarov? Her parents are alive and just dandy. I couldn't see past that lie but I can see past this. I know her. Better than any person on this planet. I know her better than that asshole she's dating. What's his name? Leon? Lucas?"

"Liam," Sam said calmly.

"Yeah," Dean agreed with conviction, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned all shades of red. "What did she do? Did she go to the crossroads? Did she make a deal? She did, didn't she?" He continued, taking Sam's silence as an affirmative. "How long does she have?"

"Seven days," Sam said under his breath.

"Great, now she's going to get nightmares and nosebleeds. We better stock up on tampons to stick up her nose." He chuckled at his own joke.

"Dean, she sold her soul for you and you're making fun of it?" Sam furrowed his eyebrows in amazement. "Aren't you mad?"

"Yeah, Sam, I am." He replied more seriously. "I'm mad as hell. I'm not mad just because Carrie sold her soul. I'm mad because she sold it to bust me out. That's not worth her soul. Like you said, what she needs isn't a gun-slinging screw up. She needs a roof over her head and she needs someone that she wants to come home to every night. She needs weird fuzzy slippers and gelato—she needs to be happy. She should have someone who can get her whatever she wants without pulling a credit card scam. She needs her life, Sam. And I regret taking it away from her."

"You didn't take it away from her, Dean." Sam gently reasoned.

"The moment I met her was the day all of her dreams were killed, Sam. You can't repay that kind of debt."

"She just did what she thought was right, Dean. Give her that much."

"I'm getting mad now," Dean forced a glaring smile. "It's all sinking in."

*****Misery: What I Loved and Hated*****

Carrie opened her eyes to Guns N' Roses' version of _Knocking on Heaven's Doors_. She sat up in the back of her car, glancing at the empty front seat first before looking out the window at the convenience store they were parked at. She gathered her necessary toiletries and found the bathroom inside. When she felt somewhat cleaned and drool-less, she walked around the large store trying to find Sam or Dean. As luck would have it, Sam got to her before his brother did.

"He knows,"

"You told him? Damn it, Sam, you had one job," Carrie cried in a hushed whisper, looking over the shelves to see if Dean was anywhere nearby. It wouldn't have been hard for him to find them; Sam was the tallest thing in that store. She huddled on the floor, bringing Sam along with her as well.

"Do you know what this means, Samuel?" Carrie looked down either end of the aisle with wide eyes. "This means that I am royally screwed. But that's okay," She glanced at him with a smile. "cat and mouse with Dean is better than with a hell-hound. But when you think about it, being with Dean is like being in hell all in itself…and he's a bitch."

Sam's eyes drifted up slowly and Carrie noticed the long shadow that appeared before her on the tiled floor.

"He's behind me, isn't he?" She gingerly turned around and looked upward at Dean glaring down.

"Sweetheart, hell is just a sauna compared to me."

"I love you?" She tried hesitantly with a childish smile.

"Shut up and get your ass back in the car," Dean snapped, motioning her toward the door. "Sam finish buying this junk."

"Does this mean I get to ride in shotgun?" Carrie helplessly contributed as she leaned against her car. Dean just frowned and glared down at her. "Hail Mary, full of grace—"

"What the hell were you thinking, Carrie?" He screamed, throwing his arms up in the air. "Five years and this is the best you could come up with?!"

"Don't over-exaggerate, Dean." She crossed her arms causally. "When did you forget that I do what I want? You give me advise but I'll just disregard it because I know what's best for you."

"'What's best for me'?" He sneered. "You think I want to live in a world that's one Russian bitch short?"

"I'd want to,"

"Well, you don't know what you want, Carrie. If you could have anything in the world what would it be? Huh? A house, a dog, a new boyfriend, maybe?"

Sam slowly came out of the store with two bags filled with junk food in his hands.

"I can't answer that, Dean." She squinted against the morning sun. "I can't answer that now. Give me a week and you'll get your answer."

"You are infuriating, Carina Makarov." Dean loudly opened the driver's door, slamming it shut and grimly sitting there.

"Well, that went better than I expected," She chuckled at Sam and got in as well.

"Don't even think about talking to me." Dean said as he started the car up.

"Duly noted,"

Sam let out a deep breath, bracing himself for a long car ride.

*****Misery: What I Loved and Hated*****

It took an entire day to finally reach Bobby's. Dean quickly got out and went toward the garage while Carrie went the opposite way to the house, leaving Sam to haul all the bags into the house.

"What bit him in the ass?" Bobby asked as Sam awkwardly waddled in. "Was it karma?"

"Didn't Carrie tell you?"

"She's here?"

"Yeah, Bobby, I thought she came inside," Sam put the bags down in a panic and ran to check every room.

"She used to sit on the roof when she passed through a couple of years back," Bobby called behind him. "Try looking there."

Sam found the safest window leading out to the roof and spotted Carrie sitting with her back towards him in the shadow of the setting sun.

"Hey," He slowly approached, sliding beside her and looking through the dense leaves of the tree that blocked the sight of dead cars. "I thought you…"

"Ran away?" She finished his sentence, pulling her hair into a messy bun. "Nah, it's too late for that. Sometimes you find that the farther you run to get away from your problems the lonelier you feel. You're just running towards nothing with no point, no objective. That's when you realize that real loss only occurs when you love someone more than you love yourself." She let out a mouthful of air. "The sun's almost gone. I've only got six days left. You know, I always thought that bucket lists were a waste of time but…this may sound so cheesy, but I always wanted to dance with someone. I thought it'd be Liam. We would just be in an empty room dancing to some random track by Etta James or Sinatra. What have I become, Sam? Everyone I love just seems to loath me. Doesn't he realize that I love him so much that I'd die for him in heartbeat?

She turned to him, tears trailing red streaks on her face. "I try, Sam. I try my best. But no matter what, everything I do disappoints him. Everything I do makes him hurt even more. If I could start again a million miles down the road…If I could—"

Carrie grit her teeth, calmly looking away from Sam's caring face and out into the leaves.

"'If you could' what, Carrie?" He asked in a whisper, afraid to break the thin ice of her thoughts.

"I don't know, Sam. Every great empire has a foundation of dirt and blood. I told you that I wouldn't always be around for him. He needs someone to keep him sane. He needs someone to trust, Sam. All this time I was tearing myself apart thinking that he didn't trust me. And it finally occurred to me that it's not that he didn't trust me. It's that he can only trust you."

She absently dismembered a leaf that was stuck in the gutters; pulling at the crisp paper-like sheet, trying to strip the dried veins and midrib. "Did you ever wonder why I wanted to commit suicide in the first place? It was because life, with all its sights and sounds, just ends eventually. You don't know when you'll be hit by a friggin meteor or gunned down by some sadistic bastard. That's how my sister died. Remember those two snipers in Washington D.C.? October 2002? I have never been so scared in my entire life. I don't want to die like her, Sam. I don't want to die like the people I love."

"Carrie, you know Dean went to hell because he sold his soul for me, right?"

"Well, he sold his soul to a demon, Sam. I made a deal with some guy in a trench coat."

Sam turned her to face him with disbelief. "What?"

"It didn't make sense to me either. He told me about how Dean was in hell. He told me that you two were destined to do great things. And then it struck me," She smiled sadly. "I won't amount up to anything, Sam. You and Dean, you can do something. You can save people. And honestly, I'm fine with six days if it means that Dean can live sixty more years."

The sky was nearly dark except the sliver of golden rays that still split the horizon. Carrie stood and climbed back in the house through the window. Elvis' _Softly_ _as I Leave You_ played from Bobby's old phonograph down stairs.

"This is a long shot," She turned to Sam. "and quite frankly, very embarrassing to bring up, but this is good enough to dance to."

Sam smiled, holding out a hand and letting her cry fresh, quiet tears while they rocked back and forth to the music.

_After all the years, I can't bear the tears to fall so softly. As I leave you here…softly._

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	13. What Do You Know About My Demons?

"Morning," Carrie groggily sat in the chair across from Sam at the kitchen table. He didn't look up but pensively prodded away at his laptop, trying to avoid any further dialogue. "Where's Dean?"

His fingers stopped typing and his eyes met her, his hair falling over his forehead when he shrugged. "Breakfast is on the stove."

She silently glided over to the skillet, one hand raking back a cascade of dyed hair. Her fork skewered a link of sausage and she stood over the oven eating off of the pan, absently striking up a general conversation. "I was thinking about changing my hair again. How would I look as a ginger?"

Carrie grinned playfully over her shoulder at Sam who stared back at her lacking any emotion.

"What?"

"Why do you keep changing the way you look, Carrie?"

She took a moment to think about this. "Maybe I don't like who I once was."

"There was nothing wrong with who you once were." He replied, slowly shutting his laptop to give her his undivided attention.

"Maybe I should dye my hair red. I bet I'd wear it better than Emma Stone."

"Carrie, you don't have to care what people think—"

"Look, Sam," She walked to the fridge. "I'm going out for more beer. Do you want anything?"

He frowned at the way she changed the subject and shook his head. His eyes followed her through the windows. Dean had just pulled in with the Impala and walked right past her without even a sidelong glance.

"Where've you been?" He asked when his brother came inside.

"Don't worry about it," Dean replied, throwing his dusty jacket on the back of the chair and rummaged around the fridge and sat back down with a beer. "Where's she going?"

"She's going out to get beer…" Sam's eyes widened. He whipped his head to see if the Fury was still in the Salvage Yard but it was nowhere in sight.

"What's up with you?" Dean called out from the kitchen when Sam jumped two stairs at a time to get his phone and dial Carrie.

"Miss me already, Sam?"

He let out a long breath of relief that he had held for a good minute. "Where are you?"

"I'm outside. I haven't even left the Yard yet."

Sam pounded down the stairs at full force and nearly smothered her when she came in through the back door.

"We have beer. Look," He pulled her to the fridge and showed her the new case that was in the very back. "You don't have to go get anymore."

"Okay, okay." She laughed airily, making her way to the adjacent room to the kitchen.

"Where are you going?"

"Oh, my God, Sam." Carrie turned, trying to keep her worried eyes off of Dean who still sat at the table. "Put your big boy pants on, would ya? I'm not going anywhere."

Just as she was about to take a step toward the stairs, there was a pealing rap on the front door. The three hunter's shared a look before Sam ran to beat her to the door.

"Is Carina Makarov here?" A tall man with blue eyes asked from the porch. Sam looked back and saw Carrie take a step back as Dean came forward to shield her with his shoulder. What amazed Sam wasn't the fact that his brother felt emotionally inclined to go out of his way to protect her, but that she allowed him to do so almost readily. It was like she was withering away from a subconscious warning in her head.

"What do you want?" Dean said in a low voice.

"Her time is up," The man replied beginning to step inside when Sam's hand slammed against the door frame and blocked the way. "You've showed your metal, Samuel Winchester."

"She's got six days left. You can't take her." Sam sneered.

"She is the one who called me. It's her time."

"What?" Dean turned around to face Carrie who guilty looked down at her feet. "No. Tell me you didn't."

She took his face between her hands, holding back that empty dam that was about to shatter inside of her, and kissed his forehead. Dean's eyes furrowed under her lips, but he forced himself to meet her eyes when she leaned back to look at him. She let out a little sniff, smiling slightly.

"You asked me what I wanted. I have an answer. I want you and Sam to be happy; I want you to give up hunting and I want you to get a girl, and a dog, and a white picket fence."

"Carrie…"

"I want you to have kids, Dean," She earnestly went on. "God forbid that poor girl and the annoying rug-rats you make." She resorted to laughing lightly, restoring a small inkling of hope in both of them. "Promise me, Dean."

"I can't."

"What? Why?" Her eyebrows came together.

"I have to get you back. This can't be our goodbye." He held her face now, bringing her close.

"It's my goodbye." Carrie whispered. "Goodbye. Because I love you."

After that there were no words. There wasn't any hollow promises of a future she couldn't guarantee for his well-being. God only knows she wouldn't start up with sappy endearments that would have been an insult to their hardened hearts.

"Let me go, Dean."

"I'll see you on the other side. Probably sooner than later." He looked at her one more time, taking a moment to memorize the face he would never see again. There were things he could have said, but that wasn't who he was, and it wasn't who Carrie was. His eyes told her the only thing that mattered.

_I would take your place if I could._

He leaned in, kissing her forehead, and then her lips. He leaned their heads together for a moment, and then moved away, not looking at her, afraid that if he did, she wouldn't be the person that she had spent years mirroring off of him.

Carrie wouldn't be a soldier dying on the hunt. She wouldn't die with her boots on. She refused to die with a soldier's honor, but more of her own stubborn pride which Dean knew there would be no cure for. She knew that Dean would never bring her name up again a million miles down the road.

And that'd be okay with her.

*****What Do You Know About My Demons?*****

It was something stirring deep inside of him, burning along his limbs and up his throat like bile. It was something he never talked about, because the second he did, it would be real. It was something he dreamt of every night, so that he woke in a cold sweat yelling for her. She died because of him.

No one-night stand could bear to be with him for long, as soon as they saw his damaged soul. He spent his time alone, his guns and words his only comfort in a dark age of himself. It didn't make any difference. He was being eaten from the inside out, and it was killing him, but slowly. Sometimes, when he woke in the night after a nightmare, he would wish he was dead, and that she wasn't. He would pray for her souls, but never his own; he didn't deserve it.

He had been too scared to burn her, but Sam had insisted. Her ashes were given to her family. She had an empty grave at some cemetery in Maryland. It was just a mound of dirt that lay beneath a white cross.

Oscar Wilde once said,

"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace."

Dean could never believe in a tomorrow. He would hunt, and he would spill blood, but he always went to sleep at night telling himself that there was no tomorrow. That would wait for him in hell.

And then one day, the man in the trench coat suddenly appeared to Dean. He and Sam were in a sleazy motel in Queens on the trial of a Drude, and the man looked right at him and said,

"She's waiting for you."

Dean would have thought this meant that he could finally die. He could finally be put to rest as a fallen soldier, telling himself that he had done everything he could to save an empty world. The man led him to an unoccupied room and motioned him to go into the bathroom. It was an old, dirty bathroom. The window sills were caked with old mud and dead roaches. But his attention wasn't on the windows. It was on the mirror that sat above the sink. He saw her. She was wearing a white dress and her hair was black again.

"I've missed you, Winchester." She smiled.

"Yeah," He replied uneasily, telling himself that if he said one more word then he'd stop breathing entirely but he managed for a little while. "I've missed you too."

"I'm not always going to be here you know."

"Why?"

"Because I know what's best for you." Her hand reached through the glass and she brushed the tear off his upper lip with her thumb.

"Where are you?" He turned his head to the side, wanting to feel her cool fingers pressed against his flushed skin but he felt his own shoulder.

"Just look up, Dean. And you'll see me there."

Then she was gone. He was staring at his own reflection, his own scars of war. With one blow his fist shattered the glass, then the window, then the plaster on the wall. His knuckles were bruised but he couldn't see the blood. That's when Dean Winchester knew that he wasn't really living, but he knew from the bottom of his heart that he could go on. He could go on because a soldier always does a job better with a girl on his mind.

After three hard years of fighting demons and shedding tears, Dean found a moment after a salt and burn to lean against the hood of the Impala, with a beer in his hand, to look up into the dark sky.

"Can you see her up there?" Sam asked when he saw his brother nostalgically staring into the distance.

Dean didn't answer. He squinted his eyes, putting more concentration in his search, and saw the wind, and the clouds, and the darkness, but he couldn't see Carrie. Maybe it was his judgment fogging his vision. His eyes relaxed and there she was.

"Don't you think it's beautiful?"

"What?" Sam asked, following Dean's eyes upward. "The smoke?"

"No. Carrie. Isn't it beautiful when you can see her up in the vaults of heaven?"

* * *

**The Road So Far...**


	14. Author's Note

**Guten Tag, everyone! **

**So, the whole point of this dreaded little note is mainly to ask if anyone would be interested in a sequel to ****_We Weren't Born to Follow. _**

**I know it's come full circle for the most part, but I must admit that Carrie has been my favorite OFC and I don't want to let go of her so soon. **

**More Carrie, or have all the loose ends been tied down pretty tight?**

**wandertogondor**


	15. Rising Sun Blues

*****Lyrics represent a break in time*****

**Supernatural belongs to Lord Kripke, and lyrics belong to its rightful owner. Carrie, in fact, belongs to yours truly. ****I know this isn't one of my best chapters but I hope it's a clear sign that I intend to carry on with her story. Reviews would make me quite happy :) Please give your honest to goodness opinion. **

**Song Used: _House of the Rising Sun_-Animals**

* * *

_Oh, mother, tell your children not to do what I have done. Spend your lives in sin and misery in the House of the Rising Sun._

"Please don't let it be a Cajun strip club."

Two grey eyes fluttered open, quickly flickering shut when a blinding light struck the sensitive senses at an inconceivable speed.

"Christ," She hissed under her breath with a sharp grimace, and continued to grumble as she stretched out her tight muscles. Her body tensed and writhed against the gravity-less air pocket she was suspended in midair. The music engulfed her in a certain psychotropic prose that blew air in through her mouth and filled her lungs with the sweet fulfillment and joy of living.

Music wasn't just a mindless rabble of sound that compelled the emotion of existing beings. It wasn't just a shitty definition you can look up on Google and expect to understand because of the already conformed norms of society.

Music is a social phenomenon. It spurs a greater ability of accomplishment then what Big Brother has already squeezed out of us from adolescence.

Every ounce of her body was put together with music. She was being built into a human symphony. Her heart was constructed by the strings—hollow in shape yet had the superior aptitude to vibrate the souls of others. The woodwinds fabricated her conscious—a lower type of sound that harvested enough passion and fervor that would overcome whole nations. Then, the brass reinforced her will. It was loud and bold, amplifying the spirit of choice.

Lastly, the music decided to connect the ancient tune to a live wire and created a sort of percussion. Everything kept a constant rhythm. Everything would make a beautiful sound when hit, shaken, or scraped. It's never easy being mainly percussion because it takes a lot of practice to hit an instrument with the right amount of strength, in the right place and at the right time.

"Carina," An impassive voice called out to her. "Open your eyes."

"I can't," She said, relaxing against a softened surface that she was laid upon. "I'll go bat-shit blind."

A cool hand touched her forehead and that sudden sinking sightless feeling diminished into some void that made it seem like it was never there to begin with.

"Open your eyes, Carina," He said again, this time more authoritative.

She took a deep breath, pursing her lips to brace herself for the blinding light. But when she did the make-believe world around her was immaculate. Boughs of trees hung over the healthy green grass, a small stream trickled in a sweet harmony across the rolling hills that surrounded the forest growth.

"Where the hell am I?"

"In heaven," A tall, plain looking man in dirty, worn clothing replied. "Your heaven. Everything you hold close to your heart is here." He extended his arms out as if he was going to capture the entire scene that lay vast before them.

"If this is my heaven," She countered with hostility, "then where's Dean Winchester?"

The angelic-figure motioned his head down to a pond that suddenly appeared at her feet. The images on the reflected water showed her the picture of the Winchester brother's settling in a sleazy motel room.

"He's so happy," She whispered, her lips parting slightly in awe of his sharp body and robust features. "He looks older though. How do I look?"

She quickly smoothed down her wrinkled shirt and twisted her long, black, wavy hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck.

"You want to go back?" It wasn't a request, but the blue-eyed angel inquired with genuine surprise. The young woman glanced up at him briefly then back down at the pool, the surface rippling against the breeze.

"Of course," was her snappy response. "You can send me back, right?"

"You must be careful, Carina." He warned firmly.

"Yeah, yeah," She waved him off lackadaisically. "'Be careful, keep your nose clean, wipe your ass…' I don't need some man in a dirty trench coat telling me how to take care of myself."

He didn't respond, he studied her every move and her adoring eyes when she lost herself in the pool at her feet.

_Well, I got one foot on the platform the other foot on the train. I'm goin' back to New Orleans to wear that ball and chain…_

She wavered as the weight of gravity pressed upon her again. Her hand shot out to grab the first thing she came in contact with: a lamp. The cheap glass teetered and tottered on the brink of the night stand then came down on the carpet with a loud shatter, large chunks of broken edges dashed and precariously powdered across the carpet within a split second.

At the sound, Sam and Dean ran from the table only to be stopped dead in their tracks. She looked at the mess then swiftly up to meet Dean's wide eyes.

"Carrie?" He took a step closer, refusing to believe.

"Hey, Dean." She replied in an equally low voice, an overjoyed smile creeping on her surprised face.

"Are you real?"

"Is _that_ real?" Carrie motioned to the broken lamp,

"How'd you do that?" Sam quickly stepped forward, salt and a trash can at ready.

"Uh, like this," She stiffly tipped over a half-empty bottle of beer onto the floor where it lay in a damp puddle.

Sam threw his hands in the air, rolling his eyes when he had to go back to the sink to get a wet cloth to dab at the carpet.

A smile spread across her face when an amused chuckle escaped Dean's throat. "What's up, Winchester? Aren't you happy to see me? I single-handedly fought off Charlie's Angels to come down here."

"But, Carrie," He approached logically, trying to find a way to prove that she was tangible. "You died. You…You took the swan dive. Hell, we burned you."

"I know," Carrie shrugged with a hint of justification, suddenly regretting coming back into his life. "I thought we could start over. It could be like old times again."

"How did you get out of hell?"

"I was never in hell," She shouted, beginning to take a step over the shattered glass.

"Watch out," Dean swept her up into his arms and carried her into the main room where a glass of Corona sat on the table.

"Your taste," She began, taking up an open bottle and sitting cross-legged on the chair. "is impeccable, Winchester. Do you have any lemon halves?"

Dean crossed his arms tightly against his chest, scrutinizing her again with his eyes pulled into a careful squint. "When I heard about that deal you made, I couldn't even cry. Too damn shocked. Guess I didn't expect someone as strong as you to just leave like that. Now, if only I'd had some strength myself, bit of courage too, then I would have shared it with you. You know, sometimes I'd see you in the street. Or I thought I see you. They all look like you. You should see all your faces everywhere, Carrie.

"And your funeral, you mother must've taken some mass of willpower to even walk up there and tell us about the girl she knew you were. Your father said he couldn't stand being at the funeral, but showed up anyway. He looked older than your grandfather that day. And Liam, he did well carrying your empty casket down the aisle even though he couldn't see a thing. If a man could drown in tears…it made your mother sob. A mother crying for her dead child is something no one should ever have to hear. I don't get it, babe. I don't get it at all how your skinny boyfriend didn't fall on his knees halfway down that aisle. Can't say I've seen anyone age that fast."

Carrie's eyes were swollen and red, and her chest was heaving heavily as she tried to suppress the deep choking that pulled at her sides. "Why are you doing this to me?"

_Now the only thing a gambler needs is a suitcase and trunk. And the only time he's satisfied is when he's on a drunk…_

"You can never go back." The angel's face suddenly appeared beside her.

Carrie looked around, still trying to get rid of that tightness in her throat. She stood above the pool in a dimmed figment of her own heaven. She curled up into a ball on the grass. She couldn't tell what time it was, everything was black yet she was living in the light. The world was calm and a smooth wind touched her skin through her tattered and torn clothes. She felt warm blood running down her legs and arms in places where they had hurt her.

They tortured her, they cut her, and they killed her. But she wasn't dead, she could still feel and hear. She wanted to die again but death wouldn't come.

"Now you know what will happen if you go back," He warned.

"That's just you screwing with my head!" Carrie screamed, disappointed tears raining down her face as she snapped her arm away from his grip. "You know what that felt like, asshole?! That was like coming to heaven and being told you can't stay. Take me back and make it real!"

This time the angel did as he was told and Carrie defied gravity. She stood outside of the motel, on the other side of the parking lot from the Impala which basked in the light of the moon. Her steps toward the motel door were brisk, almost in a desperate run.

And instead of knocking on the door, she fell right through…

since she was nothing more than another spirit reaching out to grab the life she threw away.

_Well, there is a house in New Orleans. They call it the Rising Sun and it's been the ruin of many a poor boy. And God, I know I'm one…_

* * *

**Chapter Explanations:**

The lyrics used throughout the entire chapter are from "The House of the Rising Sun" which is a song that can be translated in many different ways is, in my opinion, about a prostitute going into the business. The song always refers to New Orleans and the Cajun people usually hail from that area. So, in the beginning. Carrie is begging for the song that's playing in her head not to be about a "Cajun strip club" because she doesn't want to go back into the hunting business.

Her body being made of a symphony was just a metaphor correlating the basics parts of a symphonic orchestra (strings, bass, percussion, and woodwind) to her physical body. This is symbolism for her spirit being conformed into a physical body

So, Cas, as the blue-eyed man obviously is, doesn't want Carrie to leave heaven because her time on earth is over. So he pretends to send her down to the boys so "Dean" could go off on his "guilt-trip" which, Cas is hoping, will discourage Carrie from wanting to pursue the idea of going back down to earth because she is connected to Dean in a deeper way then brother/sister.

Like I said, the whole monologue "Dean" did was just a tactic used by Cas to keep Carrie from going back to that old life she wanted to avoid but was willing to endure to be with Dean Winchester. In that monologue, Dean's telling Carrie about her funeral-which he did, in fact, go to. "He", because it wasn't really Dean, was telling her how she had hurt so many people by selling her soul for him. She not only hurt him, but also her family. And in chapter 13 I mentioned that Dean and Sam burned Carrie's ashes so that's why Liam's carrying an empty casket. His aging is a way I implied that her family got more...tired and downtrodden because they had no idea that she was alive since they thought she had killed herself.

When she's crying and Cas talks, Carrie realizes that she hasn't been to see the boys at all, and she was just imagining it while watching them in the pool/mirror that Cas makes appear before her.

As for whether she was in heaven or hell, that's up to interpretation.

I feel like I include so many references and deep symbolism in my writing which people often overlook or don't understand so I'm going to start adding explanations after each chapter so you understand more clearly.

* * *

**The Road Goes Ever On and On...**


	16. No Oceans can Put this Fire Out

*****Lyrics represent a break in time*****

**Supernatural belongs to Lord Kripke, and Carrie belongs to me. **

**Song Used: _Don't Cry _-Guns N' Roses**

* * *

_Talk to me softly. There is something in your eyes. Don't hang your head in sorrow and please don't cry. I know how you feel inside. I've been there before. Something is changin' inside you..._

Carrie rubbed her forehead, picking her head up off the dusty carpet and looking back at the door through which she fell.

Some people, some very comical people, fall through solid doors or down rabbit holes while other never establish their ability for survival, she smirked to herself.

As Carrie sat up, lazily dangling her wrists off her knees, she looked around and her jaw hung almost spontaneously.

"All I'm saying, Sam," Dean explained in the main room with strained and exaggerated patience, "is what if this is a false alert? What if we're chasing something that stopped a hundred miles back?"

"Something or someone, Dean?" The youngest Winchester argued back. "You and me both know this isn't about whether you think there's a spirit here or not."

Carrie got to her feet, standing between the two brother's, trying to get to speed with what they were talking about. "What's going on?"

They didn't even act like they had heard her. Sam sighed loudly and sat back down in front of his laptop while Dean walked across the room to pour himself a glass of whiskey.

"Who else could it have been?" Sam questioned obviously not expecting a reasonable answer. "Great-aunt Petrova?"

"I don't give a damn who it is." Dean turned midway through the well-needed drink and said.

"How do you know?" Sam rebutted with tactical questions. "How do you know that she wouldn't? Look man, I loved the girl too but she could keep a grudge. Remember the time when some kid asked her out?

"So?" Dean snorted.

"So she shoved his face into a urinal." Sam finished.

"That punk-ass kid was asking for it, she was just being the crazy bitch she was trained by the Russian government to be. Aw, dude, she was like Black Widow." He added, now all smiles.

"I'm standing right here, you know." Carrie helplessly put in, leaning against the lattice-panel decoration that was placed directly in the foyer. "I can hear everything you're saying."

"All I know," Dean continued right through her sentence. "is that Carrie would never gank her own family. They may have screwed her over but she loved them. Bar none."

"What happened to my family?" She quickly gasped, coming to stand in front of him while waving her hand in front of his face and tried to get his attention.

Dean just paused, his eyes were looking right at her but showed no hint of recognition-it was like he was staring off into space. His breath came out in a white, frosted puff of air and he looked up to Sam.

"She's here," he said in a low warning.

"How do you know?" Sam stood from his chair, his eyes darting across the room, trying to find her.

With tears of frustration and ostracization, Carrie growled in anger, slamming the glass from Dean's hand so it shattered at her uncontrollable force on the soft carpet. "What happened to my family?" She screamed so desperately which caused the lights to flicker in the lamps around the room.

Dean and Sam both looked down at the broken glass with wide eyes before running to grab the salt out of their duffel bags when they finally saw Carrie standing in the middle of the room, her face was pale and glistening due to the tears.

"What happened to my family?" She repeated with more force.

"Carrie," Dean put his hands up while Sam loaded the sawed-off with rock salt. "listen to me..."

She took a few steps closer to him, chewing at her bottom lip. "You think I killed my family? I didn't kill anyone."

"We know, babe," He assured unsurely, eyeing her blood-stained clothing. "We're just trying to find out who's doing the killing if it's not you."

"Is she here?" Sam cried, aiming the shotgun in different directions. "Dean, I can't see her."

"Yeah, she's here." Dean grit his teeth in answer, never letting his gaze fall off of Carrie.

She didn't look like she had had braved through the fires of hell. Despite her blood-stained clothes, she was healthy and unjaded. Her face was older than the last time he saw her, by now she would be at least 24. Every part of him said to reach out and hold her, to never let her go this time around. But there was a flame in her eyes which was what Dean imagined looked like if a tornado clashed head-on with a hurricane.

Carrie choked on a sob when she looked down to her left and her eyes found a series of article carelessly strewn over the bed sheets with the faces of her dead family members. She met Dean's stare before flickering into the air.

_Don't you cry tonight, I still love you, baby. Don't you cry tonight. There's a heaven above you..._

"Why couldn't I see her?" Sam demanded when another fresh line of salt was spread over the original one and Dean had explained what had happened with my clarity.

"I don't know, Sam," Dean replied harshly, irritated at his brother's string of questions which mixed in with his own personal confusion.

"Well, what did she say to you?"

"She said she didn't kill anyone," He stood up straight, closing the canister of salt and bracing himself against the kitchenette which Sam looked back at him from the table. "And she started crying when she saw the clipping about how her family died."

"Maybe she doesn't remember killing them. Maybe she's stuck in her own world of disillusionment."

"She had blood all over her clothes," Dean rubbed his eyes with one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"So, she did kill her parents,"

"I don't know."

"Well, where is she now?"

"I don't know, Sam!" Dean suddenly shouted, angrily grabbing his jacket and storming out the door.

_Give me a whisper and give me a sign. Give me a kiss before you tell me goodbye..._

"What happened?" Carrie demanded in a low voice when she heard the footfalls of the angel's steps crunch against the dried leaves behind her. "What did I do?"

She shut her eyes, squinting so hard that she could make out little floaters running across her closed eyelids before a kaleidoscope of colors followed.

Just because she was in heaven, she resentfully observed, didn't mean that pain was any further away than it would be down on earth. She could just reach out and touch it. She could taste it and feel it and see it all around her. It circled and lingered in the air until heaven didn't even have that unimaginable beauty anymore because it was scarred by the ugly scars of pain and suffering.

"They were killed,"

Carrie snorted out a small, bitter laugh, not bothering to turn around to face the angel. "Tell me something I don't know, blue eyes."

He came closer and put an awkward hand on her back, unsure what else to do to comfort this species of ova-filled humanoid. "Why did you do it, Carina?"

She turned his head to curiously glare at him. "Wha-What do you mean?"

"You must make amends with what you did to your family."

"I didn't kill them!" She screamed through her tears, clutching her aching stomach with one arm.

"Then how can you explain the blood on your shirt or the way your clothes are torn?"

She blinked a few times, staring at him first then slowly looking down at her tattered clothing. "I don't...I can't..."

"You killed your family." He resolutely said. "Now you must make amends."

Carrie's heart jumped against her chest, the throbbing was tight and it was all she could do to go into another bout of unnecessary tears. "What do I have to do?"

_Don't you take it so hard now, and please don't take it so bad. I'll still be thinkin' of you and the times we had..._

Dean moodily paced the parking lot outside of the motel room where they were would pause, mid-walk, look up into the skies, clench his fists, then he'd continue his unsettled time of putting things straight in his own head. He finally groaned out loud outward and leaned against the side of the Impala, crossing his arms and resting his chin on his chest.

"Dammit Carrie," He hopelessly cursed under his breath, catching himself remembering tender memories which he had stored away in his vault of heartbreaking recollections at the bottom of his heart. "Carrie," He started much softer now, hoping she could hear the words he was saying. "I don't know what to believe now. We've been hunting this thing for months and I refuse to believe that it was you who killed all those innocent people. That's not who you are. So please...please," His voice faltered, maybe he wanted to just stare at her rather than accuse of her murder. "I just want - need to see you. Don't you forget about me."

Carrie had silently stood in front of him the entire time, crossing her arms and mirroring the way his body stood in the night breeze.

"Can you hear me?" She asked in a little voice. "Can you see me?"

Dean raised his head, his eyes were still shut tightly but his ears had caught her sound. He couldn't hear footsteps but that didn't matter. He felt a warm hand pressed against his face and that alone gave him courage to look into her face. Carrie's lips parted slightly and she tried her best to give him an encouraging smile but she didn't have any will to drown out her guilt.

"You're back," He quietly speculated with a hoarse chuckle.

"I came to make amends. I don't know what I did, Dean, but I want to help...If you'll let me."

Dean tried to take a hold of her since he spent three years not feeling, not knowing. His arms snugly fit against her lower back and wrapped around her waist. "We burned your body. How can you-?"

"Holy water can't put out a forest fire, Dean," She said, innocent and matter-of-factly, smiling into a soft kiss.

When she pulled away Dean couldn't look past her beautiful face. She was impenetrable mind, body, and reason.

No, he couldn't look past and he couldn't look through.

He could only stare.

_And please remember that I never lied. And please remember how I felt inside now, honey. You gotta make it your own way but you'll be alright now, sugar. You'll feel better tomorrow. Come the morning light now, baby._

* * *

**Chapter Explanation:**

When Dean asks Carrie how she can possibly be on earth, and Carrie replies with "Holy water can't put out a forest fire" it was just a metaphor for saying that no matter what supernatural hoodoo used for suppressing her (this is backtracking to Cas's little test in the last chapter) that she can't be put down. It was just an underlying meaning that holy water can't smother the large forest fire that's started in her.

I feel like this chapter was pretty straight-forward (as opposed to the last chapter) but if anyone is confused by ANYTHING! please ask 'cause I don't want you to read this without understanding my full meaning :)

Please don't be bashful! I won't bite, I promise!

* * *

**The Road Goes Ever On and On...**


	17. I Won't be Lost, I Won't be Found

**So, I finally got back from India (yay!.) This chapter was actually written in the plane and it's amazing what you can come up with 33, 000 ft up in the air :) **

**Song Used: _Hey Jude _- The Beatles**

* * *

_Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let her into your heart then you can start to make it better..._

"So," Sam dragged the word out skeptically. "you're telling me that Carrie wants to make amends because she killed her family? Do you even hear what you're saying?"

"Could you stop talking about her like she's some sort of killer?" Dean snapped, understanding how crazy he must have sounded to his little brother. "She doesn't know what happened. She's broken, Sam. So don't ever tell me that I don't know what I'm saying. It may surprise you how right I can be."

Sam frowned and stood up from the desk, walking over to lean against the kitchenette, eyes thoughtfully thrown on the ground. "Let's just say that she didn't kill her family - "

"Which she didn't," Dean cut in.

"- how can she possibly help us? She's a damn spirit, Dean! We burned her remember?"

"No," The oldest Winchester stood firm in his mindset. "we burned the body that we thought was her."

"Then why can't I see her?"

"Because she doesn't want you to, Sam!"

"Why?" Sam threw his hands up in vain, standing up straight and grabbing the corners of the counter. A line had formed between his eyes and it just got deeper and darker as the days went by. "Why does she like you more than she likes me?"

It never occurred to Sam how jealous he was of his brother. It wasn't because of Carrie. Sam just used her as a scapegoat to represent all the times he stood in the darkness of Dean's shadow.

_Is that your brother with Amanda Heckerling? He's so cool!_

_Is Dean your boss?_

_Who is that man? He's so brave._

_The big hero..._

"Listen to me, Sammy." His brother pleaded, holding out one hand to stop him from saying anything until he was done. "We can't give up on her now."

Sam clenched his jaw and nodded, obviously not buying it. "So, what do we do?"

"Wait it out." Dean suggested. "Wait for Carrie to come back and just talk...civilly."

_Hey Jude, don't be afraid. You were made to go out and get her. The minute you let her under your skin then you begin to make it better..._

At first it was a hollow tune that could barely be heard; the rise and fall of the bass couldn't be picked out for certain but it was there. Dean could feel it all around him - moving through his veins. It coursed through his being so easily that he was sure that it had been dormant inside his soul from the moment he met her.

Then it became louder, drowning every other noise his trained ears picked out. It filtered out every inkling of hope he had within himself until he floated over an empty void, eyes searching the vast array of colors that radiated off the prism of her life above him. For a moment of fixated awe, he reached out to grasp the hand she held out.

Dean Winchester couldn't feel anything.

He jolted up in his sweat drenched sheets with a loud gasp. Kicking off the heavy comforter, he threw his legs over the side of the bed. The room was pitch black aside from the jaded light from the street lamps which illuminated the lightly curtained window. It took Dean a moment to remember the layout of the rachet motel room before he slowly stood to his feet, hardly wavering...hardly shaking. Sam turned restlessly in the neighboring bed, his breathing even.

After a long pause, Dean blindly groped toward the air conditioner below the window. He squinted and rubbed his eyes to adjust his vision to the darkness, one hand reaching out to brush aside a corner of the curtain so a source of light could fall onto the small print on the machine. As his agitation mounted in the unbearable heat, Dean continued to fiddle with the dials; turning all of them so that the black printed needle pointed to the blue extreme.

His hand hovered over the vents, just waiting for the stale air to turn comfortingly cold. Several seconds passed by, blending into several minutes, but the air didn't change. With a frustrated groan, Dean sat on the floor with his bare back pressed against the slightly cool wall. Keeping his ears alert for the song in his sleep, Dean allowed his eyes to close halfway and couldn't help but let his chin rest against his chest.

All of a sudden the room felt like it was covered in a thin cake of ice. Assuming that the grumbling machine beside him finally was working, Dean let out a relieved breath. Through his partly opened eyelids, he saw that his breath was visible in wisps of white.

"Dean," A voice said near his ear. Dean snapped his head up fast enough so that the corner of the window pane struck his skull.

"Dammit," He muttered in pain, rubbing his aching scalp. "could you not be anymore smooth?"

"I should be asking you the same thing." She replied with a disapproving frown. "I'm a spirit, Dean, stuck between heaven and earth. Smooth ain't in the criteria." There was an uncomfortable silence. "Do you think I did it?"

Dean bit the inside of his lip and stared into the darkness of the motel room, shivering slightly when Carrie placed her fingers on his forearm.

"Dean?" The way she spoke was so gently and earnest that he could almost see her warm voice spiral up and dance around and cut at the cold air which was only there because she was. "Answer me."

It sounded more like a desperate plea for help rather than the usual assertiveness that he was used to getting from her. Dean wanted to take her in his arms so he could hold her tight and assure her that he believed that she didn't do it with every ounce of blood that he was willing to spill for her from his wrists. But he couldn't do that because in the split second that he met her eyes, it wasn't what he believed anymore. Carrie lowered her head, understanding his silence.

"I'm sor - " But before he could finish she was gone.

And for a moment, Dean swore he heard that old, familiar tune again.

_And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain. Don't carry the world upon your shoulders..._

"So, what is this?" Carrie growled into the calm serenity of her heaven. "Is that what you call purgatory? He doesn't believe me?" She snapped her head to and fro, her eyes fiercely scanning the botanical landscape for the heavenly being who she blamed for her misery.

"Hey, angel! Get down here or I'll shove some holy feathers up your feathery ass."

Silence.

Aggravating silence.

Carrie put her hands on either side of an oak tree and leaned her forehead against the hard bark.

_For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder..._

"Ma?" A fourteen year old Carrie gripped the doorknob with all her might to control the loud rattling of the loose screws. She had always been meaning to fix it since no one seemed to notice. All she had to do was dig up a Phillips screwdriver from her father's workroom in the basement. But she had never been able to get herself to go down there anymore.

Colin Makarov didn't have the chance of to be clearly engraved in his daughter's memory. He had been one of the brave Army Rangers to lose his life in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. He had left behind vague memories in his youngest daughter's mind, including the time when he sat her down in his workroom so she could watch as he cleaned out his guns and polished his big black combat boots. That was as close as she could remember of her father since his funeral nine years ago - she was only five.

Those boots are still polished. Carrie's thoughts went off on a tangent, They must be in a box collecting dust by now.

"Ma?" She repeated, using her shoulder to slowly ease the bedroom door open. She peered inside through the foot-wide opening.

"Deb?" Her mother's voice called out. "Deb, is that you?"

Carrie stepped into the room, nudging away the empty cartons of cigarettes, which missed the trash bin, with the toe of her canvas shoes. "No, ma, it's me."

"Oh," Sibylla Harrington's face fell in disappointment. "Where's Deb?"

"I don't know."

Sybilla looked up from the heavy ledger on her lap with a steely face. "Why don't you know?"

Her daughter pursed her lips, nervously shifting in one spot on the shag carpeting.

"Answer me!"

"I don't know!" Carrie replied in the same tone.

"Don't you raise your voice to me, Carina."

Carrie knew there was no point of pissing her mother off anymore than she already had so she swallowed her pride and apologized.

"Well," Her mother sniffed, shutting the ledger with a smart snap. "what'd you come all the way up here for? I doubt it was to say sorry."

"Paul wanted me to tell you..." Carrie stopped when she saw the stern glare on her mother's face. "What?"

"Don't call your father by his first name."

_Stepfather._ Carrie mentally corrected. _And one could hardly call him a father-figure. Womanizing asshole would be one of the more generous titles for Paul Harrington, partnering head of New England Firearms._

"Dad," She started again, spitting out the word like it came with a bitter taste. "wanted me to tell you that he wants to see the menu you were supposed to make for the U.R.A. gala next week."

Sybilla grimaced, obviously confused. "U.R...wha?"

"U.R.A., mom. United Rifle Association? Remember? Paul - I mean, _dad_, told you to make up a menu."

"Riiight." She snorted a laugh. "More like United Redneck Association."

Carrie forced a smile with infinite patience and started for the door.

"Carina, did you get all your things packed?" Her mother asked, now busy looking for the menu that had been printed on expensive stationary.

"I'm almost done."

"God! I can't wait to get out of this creaky old house and move to a mansion!" Sybilla flung her loose brown curls over her shoulder extravagantly as she finished the sentence. "But before you finish up find your sister. She better not be sucking Liam's face."

Wanna bet? Carrie rolled her eyes and reassured her mother that she'd find Deb and then she headed toward her room.

Ever since she was a child, Carrie had one heaven: her room, a place of total solitude and comfort. About half a dozen boxes now were neatly lined up against the walls of her room along with two large suitcases filled with her clothes. The rest of her heaven was striped down to nothing. Now she was one heaven short of happiness.

Little did she know that soon she'd be able to call a 1967 Chevy her new heaven.

Carrie kicked off her Converse and pulled on a pair of boots, a pair just like the ones her father was polishing so many years ago. She grabbed her knapsack filled with a few shirts, an extra pair of jean, a couple of boxes of ammunition, and a rolled up wad of cash she had spent years collecting. Lastly she grabbed her father's gun and neatly laid out a prewritten suicide note on the sealed boxes for her family to find.

_Hey Jude, don't let me down. You have found her, now go and get her. Remember to let her into your heart then you can start to make it better..._

"Please!" Carrie begged, her throat sore from swallowing the hard lumps that caught on her gasps for air. she was exhausted from crying and pleading with the angel to offer her some sort of hard-luck explanation so she sat with her back against the oak tree and caught her breath.

"What are you crying about, angel?" A pair of warm arms wrapped around her shoulders. "Tell daddy what's wrong?"

"Daddy," She coughed out another sob and leaned her head against him. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going on. I need someone to help me. I don't know where to start."

"Start where you know, honey." He advised comfortingly, rubbing her arms.

"But dad," Just as she looked up to see her father's face, Carrie saw the angel standing tracks feet away from her instead. "Where's my dad?"

"In your head."

She scoffed, laughing at herself for progressively paving her own road to the loony bin. "I just want to know what happened. I want to fix it all and just die in peace."

The angel loosely made a fist. "It's not my place to answer the reason for your penance."

"Well, where do I start? With Dean?"

"With yourself."

_So let it out and let it in, hey Jude, begin. You're waiting for someone to perform with. And don't you know that it's just you, hey Jude, you'll do..._

* * *

**The Road Goes Ever On and On...**


End file.
